


Boys Keep Swinging

by Carbocat



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Bullying, Depression, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Paranoia, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2018-11-12
Packaged: 2019-02-17 05:54:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 28
Words: 178,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13070505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carbocat/pseuds/Carbocat
Summary: Friends don’t lie to each other and Steve wasn’t being bullied but that wasn’t what she was asking.  He tried to make the smile reach his eyes, “It's nothing I can’t handle.”





	1. Chapter 1

“Are you being bullied?”

The question came fast and out of nowhere, and Steve was not prepared for it. He reacted to it as if it had struck his face with closed fists and broke his nose. It was a violent surge that shuttered through him, aching his still tender ribs and stealing his breath from his lungs with a sharp intake.

His face pulled into an awful expression of pain and confusion. His wince was made even worse by the bruising that still stubbornly clung to his features, “What?”

Three weeks, the gates were closed.

Bob was dead, Barb was dead, a hell of a lot of people were dead. Hawkins National Lab was national news, shut down and deemed contaminated. The DOJ came in and knocked on doors, performed random tests on blood and health, and spoke in manners that felt threatening when you know too much.

The news vans came and they went.

Steve lost his girlfriend, his friends, and any denial that he had that he was not elbow fucking deep in all this fucked up weirdo shit.

He remembered for the briefest second of sitting on Byers’ front porch with blood coagulating on his face and pulling uncomfortably at the skin, the taste of cooper on his tongue and the ache that still haunted his ribs. He was reminded of the way exhaustion pulled on his wounds and the headache that never really went away.

He was reminded of Nancy, with her messy hair and tired eyes, and the concentration in which she shined a light into his eyes to watch their sluggish reaction. He was reminded of the sunrise and the sleepless morning, and the way agents in black clothing populated the town for weeks afterwards.

He remembered the seconds that weighed down the morning air, that felt frozen and heavy, and suffocating when Nancy asked him such a loaded question, _do you think this is the end?_

He remembered all the unasked possibilities that flooded his mouth and tangled his tongue, all the unasked meaning – the end of the monsters, of the Upside Down and their involvement with it, of Billy Hargrove and his violent fist, of normalcy. Of them.

He remembered the endless depths of hollowed out enervation in his soul and the loneliness so cold he might as well have been upside down. He did not answer, _no_.

He did not say, _it would never end._

He had swallowed the blood running down the back of his throat and all the words on his tongue. He had smiled and shrugged his shoulders and reopened his split lip with little care. He remembered what he had told her in a cheery upbeat, “Sure hope so.”

Nothing had really changed after the night the world almost ended.

Nancy joined the Winter formal committee, joined every committee and every club that she could, and her and Jonathan became an official high school item. Hopper got a secret daughter, the Byers got new windows, and Steve somehow ended up driving a car full of backseat-driving twerps with only mild complaint.

Steve had never been much of a talker but he found that he had less to say. There was no one there to notice.

People stopped asking when the next big party was going to be and Steve stopped avoiding answering. He stopped going to parties, stopped joining conversations, stopped eating lunch. He gave up on any notion that he’d be _King Steve_ again and stopped pretending that he wanted to be.

He showered with the bathroom door open at home, installed more locks on every door and motion censored lights around the pool. He avoided the back of his closet and closing doors, embraced all the ramifications of the suffocating claustrophobia haunting him. He stopped going out when he didn’t need to, he bought a nightlight to illuminate his nightmares onto the walls but nothing really changed. Nothing that mattered.

Steve was paranoid of any stranger in dark sunglasses, of business men in business suits and women that were a little too forward in the ways they flirted with him on his early morning diner runs. He listened obsessively with batted breath for the tale-tell click of a tapped phoneline until he stopped answering the phone altogether. He checked for tiny microphones in his lights, looked for listening devices in pens he didn’t remember buying. He looked for anything he’d read about in shitty dime store spy novels.

It was the Russians that they were told to worry about but it was the government and their portal to an actual hell that woke him in cold sweats.

The gates were closed, he reminded himself, it was all over.

Steve dipped his soggy French fries into his melting milkshake without eating either when the question was lobbed and hit him in the face. He frowned at the table and his unfinished homework and then at Dustin sliding into the booth, “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Nancy says you’re acting weird.”

“You’ve been talking about me to Nancy?”

“Yeah.”

“Well,” Steve drawled out the world slowly and in doing so, it sounded sarcastic though Steve wasn’t sure if he meant for it to. “After – I mean, after all the shit we’ve – acting a little “weird” is sort of expected, right?”

They never spoke of Demogorgons in public, at least not with Steve. They never said a word of the living tunnels, or dead scientists, or the nail bat in Steve’s trunk. He felt his heart shutter in his chest at the thought of being overheard by spies and the government, he squashed the feeling beneath heavy indignity, “I don’t need everyone breathing down my neck because I’m not meeting your expectations of normalcy.”

“That’s what she’s talking about,” Dustin pointed out, stealing his untouched fries. “You’re defensive.”

“I’m fine.”

“And that is what _I_ said,” He added. Steve pushed the rest of his milkshake across the table. “She’s been reading all these books about this thing called PTSD, that stands for-“

“I know what it stands for.”

“Soldiers get it after going to war, and stuff,” Dustin continued as if Steve hadn’t said a word. “And well, what she’s saying was starting to make sense because there clearly _is_ something up with you. She diagnosed you with that.”

“Well, she’s wrong,” Steve defended himself. “There’s nothing wrong with me. I haven’t even talked to Nancy since-“

“I think that’s a part of the problem and you _have_ been…odd, lately. Quiet.”

“I’ve been quiet so, naturally, you thought…” Steve wouldn’t put a voice to the concept, to the word because the notion was ridiculous that anyone would be – he felt embarrassed that a dipshit like Dustin would even think he could possibility be _that_.

“Bullying,” Dustin finished when Steve didn’t. “Yeah.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“You can tell me,” Dustin said in a whispered voice, leaning in so far that his chin was practically resting on the table. “Friends don’t lie to each other, Steve.”

“I’m not – is this a joke? Are you fucking with me right now?” Steve asked incredulous, defensive when he had no right to be. “Seriously, are you? I’m not being – whatever all of you seem to think is going on at your _Talk Shit About Steve_ club meetings but it isn’t happening. Nothing is happening, kid.”

“Is it Billy?”

“Are you deaf?” He asked before taking a breath, he ran his hand down his face before spreading his arms across the width of the booth. He asked with a smirk dangerously closed to splitting his not-quite-healed lip, “It’s me, kid. I’m King Steve, not some twerp that-“

“What about that Tommy guy?” Dustin asked, pressing the issue farther instead of just listening. “Nance said he’s been a real dick since you stopped being friends.”

“No.”

There was something in Steve’s tone that shut down, causing Dustin to pause in his questioning and a look too mature for a kid his age overcame his face. Steve felt guilty about putting it there, about Dustin and the rest of those dumbass kids having to grow up faster than they should.

His own gaze shifted from Dustin’s to his history homework in front of him. He sighed, “This paper is due tomorrow.”

“Steve-“

“What do you want, Dustin?” He asked tiredly, catching from the corner of his eyes the four shadows in the arcade window across the way. He didn’t miss the way they disappeared beneath the windowsills. They were watching because they all thought that – “Is it quarters? Are you out?”

Dustin was quiet for a moment and then he sighed like he was giving up, laying his hand across the table, “I still haven’t beat Max’s score.”

“I thought you did last week.”

“She beat me again.”

Steve forced himself to laugh, it felt hollow and echoed in his ears as he dumped the rest of his change into the waiting hand. Dustin stopped him from pulling away by catching his sleeve, “We’re friends, right?”

“Yeah, buddy.”

“Friends don’t lie to each other.”

“I’m not lying, I’m-“

“Why didn’t you tell Hopper about Billy that night?”

“What?”

“I heard you,” Dustin said almost accusingly. “He asked why you looked like ran over dogshit and you said that a demo-dog took a swipe at you and that we saved you.”

Steve’s breathing hitched and he coughed, pulling his hand away from Dustin to cover it as he shifted back to his side of the booth. He hissed lowly, “What is this? Are you fishing for more discussion topics for the _Talk Shit About Steve_ club?”

“There isn’t a _Talk Shit About Steve_ club, Steve!” He exclaimed. “I’m _concerned_ about you because you are my _friend_ and you look like sleep deprived shit.”

“Look, kid,” He sighed. “I have to finish this paper so you got like, an hour before I’m taking you home. If you’re planning to beat that score than go.”

Dustin sighed too and then climbed out of the booth, “This conversation isn’t over, Harrington.”

 

Steve dropped Max off first.

She had the strictest curfew, the meanest sibling, and she looked like she wanted to escape the confines of the car more than he did.

He didn’t know if the conversation with Dustin had just put him on edge or if he was as paranoid as he sometimes thought he was but the atmosphere in the car felt tense and awkward. Even the conversation circling around him felt stilted and rehearsed. Steve had the creeping feeling that people were talking about him behind his back and he hated it.

“So, uh, Max.” her eyes shot to him from the passenger seat almost like she was annoyed with him for acknowledging her existence. He was never quite sure if she liked him or not so he adjusted his view back to the road, “Is, uh, how is everything at home?”

“Why do you care?”

“I care,” He replied defensively, Max was so damn defensive that it made Steve feel like a creep for just asking a simple question. “I – whatever, is your brother still bothering you?”

“Step-brother,” She muttered under the sound of loud indignant theorization about Han Solo fighting Captain Kirk from the backseat. “No, he doesn’t bother me much anymore.”

“Are you sure?” He asked, his eyes unwillingly flickering to a bruise on her forearm. “Because-“

“I fell off my skateboard,” She justified, pulling down her sleeve. “Billy is – he’s mostly just…indifferent, I guess, and a shit babysitter.”

“Good.”

“Good,” She repeated slowly, watching him with critical eyes that were so much older than she was. “Is he still being mean to you?”

Friends don’t lie to each other and Steve _wasn’t_ being bullied but that wasn’t what she was asking. He pointedly looked back to the road as he pulled up outside of her house.

He tried to make the smile reach his eyes, “Nothing I can’t handle.”

Max opened her mouth but the passenger side door was pulled open from under her elbow and Dustin poked his head in, “What are you talking about?”

“How annoying you are,” Max replied, shoving him back as she grabbed her backpack and her skateboard. She climbed out of the car and Dustin plopped into the passenger seat, “Bye, Steve.”

Steve cut across town to take Will home next so that the boys had more time to geek out over whatever it was that geeks geeked out over. He then dropped Mike and Lucas before driving Dustin home, “Alright, shithead, I wasted a ton of gas crisscrossing across town because you wanted to talk alone, what’s up?”

“Why didn’t you tell Hopper about Max’s step-brother?”

Steve fell back into his seat and debated slamming his forehead into the steering wheel after he pulled in to park in the Henderson driveway. Instead, he flipped off his headlights so not to alert Mrs. Henderson that he was there, “Jesus Christ.”

“I told you the conversation wasn’t over.”

“Drop it.”

“No.”

“ _Drop_ it.”

“Make me.”

“Dustin.”

“Steve,” Dustin told him, “Friends don’t lie to each other.”

Steve let his head fall against the steering wheel despite himself. He just shrugged, “I don’t know.”

“There has to be a reason.”

“There was too much shit already going on for it to matter,” Steve muttered. “It didn’t matter.”

“Yeah, it did,” Dustin replied. “It still does, Steve.”

“No, it really didn’t,” He sighed, waving him off. “What would it have changed?”

“Billy could be in jail like he _deserves_ ,” Dustin all but tacked on _DUH_ to the end of the sentence. “He’s a psychopath, Steve. He could have killed you.”

Steve snorted, “Fuck that, Dustin, shit wasn’t going to happen. He got the point, he’ll stay away from you and Lucas, he’s being nicer to Max.”

“What point was that again?” He asked sarcastically. “If he wants to mess with us again, he’ll first have to kick your ass again?”

“I’m not above telling a twelve year old to fuck off, Dustin.”

“I’m thirteen.”

“Fuck off.”

Dustin huffed and then laughed out loud, laughing harder when Steve all but tried to push him out of the car, “Steve! Steve – stop! I’m going to fall.”

“Dustin,” He nearly whined, burying his hands in his hair in exasperation. “Seriously, nothing is wrong with me. I’d tell you if there was.”

“There is no one bothering you?” He asked again. “You’d tell me because friends don’t lie to each other, right?”

“There is someone bothering me,” Steve admitted. “It’s you, now get the hell out of my car.”  


	2. Chapter 2

_“Watch it, Harrington.”_

Those three words cut through the densest of sleep deprived fog like the sharp blades of demo-dog teeth, cut through noisy hallway chatter and straight into Steve. It woke him, and it startled him, and it was oh so familiar.

It was almost like a routine at this point.

It was clockwork, a mantra of early morning repetition. It was a call of warning for an action that followed. It was almost boring the way Steve prepared for it, the way he braced himself to be shoulder checked into his locker.

He felt that he should probably be bothered by how used to it he was but mostly, he felt relieved.

It happened then it ended, the gates were closed. Nothing would ever change.

“Watch it, Harrington,” and Steve tensed his muscles and planted his feet, and he waited for the blow to come with his eyes shut and his head bowed forward.

The shove was harder than Steve had grown accustom to, two large hands curling into the fabric of his jacket and roughly shoving him forward with deliberate intention. He clipped his shoulder on a jagged piece of metal with the force of the shove, feeling the material of his jacket tear against it as it tore into his arm.

Caught off guard by the break in the routine, Steve had one horrible second after his forehead collided with the siding of his open locker where he thought he was going to be shoved inside of it. He swore lowly, “Christ, Hargrove.”

“What do you want?” He asked when Billy didn’t continue to saunter by but slid up beside him to lean against the lockers with his arms crossed. Steve swore that Billy had no idea how buttons or Indiana winters worked as he shoved the rest of his things into his locker, not wanting to have them knocked out of his hands again.

When he got no response other than blue eyes glaring into him, he fixed Billy with an unimpressed and tired expression and mourned the loss of well-practiced routine. Steve exhaled slowly, “You going to say something or do you plan to just stand there all day, leering?”

“I’m “bullying” you, huh?” He finally said. He made a show of using exaggerated air quotes as if to say that he thought the very concept of it was as stupid and ridiculous as the notion that Hawkins could be infested with secret government organizations and faceless monsters. “That right?”

Billy’s eyes were as focused as lightning blue lasers and they were boring holes into Steve’s eyes with an intensity so hot and bright that he felt he would go blind. He was sure that Billy could tell how still Steve went, how cold, as he spread his arms wide in a grand show, “That what you’re telling people, Harrington? Here, I thought we were friends.”

“We’re not friends.”

“That hurts, Harrington,” He pouted, the unlit cigarette in his mouth bobbing up and down with every word as if it was also mocking Steve. He put a big hand to his bare chest, “Hurts in my _heart_ , Steve. You hurt my heart.”

“Friends don’t break each other’s noses,” Steve hissed lowly through his clenched jaw, and Billy laughed. “ _My_ friends also don’t try to beat up thirteen year old kids.”

Billy doesn’t take the low hanging fruit and point that the only friend Steve had left _were_ thirteen year old kids. Instead, he waved him off like he was nothing more than a yappy puppy nipping at his heels and asked, “Didn’t Byers kick your ass last year? You seem pretty _chummy_ with that creep but I’m a bully, that it?”

“I never said that.” Steve stopped himself from saying more, from explaining the whole damn conversation with Dustin because he hadn’t said _that_. He had, in fact, _explicitly_ stated that he wasn’t being bullied but those shitheads never listened to a goddamn thing. “I don’t know where those kids come up with half the shit they do.”

“That so?” He nodded thoughtfully. “So, Max is a liar then?”

Billy winced dramatically as he moved his unlit cigarette from his lips to behind his ear, “Well, that’s a problem now, isn’t it?”

“No! No, it’s – there is no problem,” Steve backtracked, remembering bruises and skateboarding excuses, and how he can never be too sure if Max is telling the truth or not. He shivered at the thought of the crazed _joy_ in Billy’s eyes the night he beat the shit out of him, and how it made him feel sick thinking of that directed at Max.

He realized belatedly that Billy was messing with him, setting a trap and watching Steve predictably stumble head first into it but he figured that he should defend Max anyways, “Wires were probably crossed or something. Those dipshits don’t know half of what they’re talking about, probably just confused her.”

“So, now she’s dumb?”

“I don’t know, man, she anything like you?”

Billy threw his head back and barked a laugh that was as loud and head-turning as it was sinister, there was a dark current to it like Billy needed Steve to fight back. He shook off the thoughts of glass plates and closed fist, and how they all narrowed to living tunnels.

His eyes flickered around the hall and he breathed out his nerves, grateful that he was almost always running late since he started picking Dustin up in the morning because the hallways were mostly empty. It had been pretty well deduced by the general high school public that the person who beat the absolute fuck out of Steve’s face three weeks ago had been Billy.

Mostly now, it was just circled rumors as to why, with most of them involving Steve skipping out on basketball practice. It was old news and was quickly buried beneath new waves of high school drama only to bob back to the top every time they had one of these annoying interactions.

Steve was grateful that there weren’t too many watchful eyes this time.

Billy threw his arm over Steve’s narrow shoulders, curling his fist into Steve’s ripped jacket sleeve as his fingernails scratched against the seeping cut beneath it. He pulled Steve in close and stabbed a pointed finger into his chest, “I always forget, Harrington. You’re _funny._ ”

“I’m freakin’ hilarious,” Steve muttered, shoving Billy’s arm off his shoulders with more force than necessary. “As great as this conversation has been, Hargrove, some of us actually go to class.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Billy waved him off, letting Steve get so far as to gather the things he needed for his morning classes from his locker before knocking his textbooks and folders out of his hands. He kicked the books across the floor with a laugh on his lips, “Oops, Harrington.”

Steve didn’t have time to respond before hands were curled tight into the front of his shirt and he was shoved back into the lockers with enough force to knock the breath from his lungs and to ache his sore ribs. Billy’s voice was a low mock, so close that Steve could feel the rumble of threat in his chest and could smell the mix of cigarette smoke and Aqua-Net hairspray on him, “Is this bullying, Steve?”

Steve wondered almost distractingly if the scent of the tunnel still clung to him or if it was just in his head as he was pulled roughly from the lockers and shoved. He tripped over his feet as he stumbled and then over his history textbook, catching the floor with his elbows.

He heard Billy exclaim loudly with that annoying ‘ _well, I’ll be’_ mock of an Indianan accent, “Awe hell, Harrington, aren’t you just a klutz.”

A hand was extended into his field of vision and Steve knew better than to grab it at this point but he did anyways. He was pulled face to face with Billy before being shoved back into the floor, “What did I say about planting your feet, Harrington?”

The _tsk_ in Billy’s voice was sharp and cutting, and it was enough to make Steve want to punch him in his smug face. The look of disgust down the tip of Billy’s nose as he turned to walk away was enough to crack something in Steve’s composure, to compel him to go toe-to-toe for round two with his ribs still aching and his face still slightly bruised, to give it his all and knock the self-congratulating smirk off his goddamn face. Instead, Steve stuck his foot out and caught Billy between both of his.

He didn’t fall but he stumbled, catching himself on Veronica Harrison’s locker, and Steve laughed, “Looks like I’m not the only klutz, Hargrove.”

Billy steadied himself, turning around with bright manic in his eyes and a crazed kind of excitement on his lips. It was like he was gunning for a fight that Steve finally provided enough justification to have.

Steve longed for the feel of his bat in his hands, for the weight of it and the swish of air through nails. He was tired, and shaking, and a part of him preferred this to the taunts and the shoves almost as much as Billy did.

He didn’t fight against the hold when Billy hauled him back onto his feet, went with the backwards motion as he was shoved against the lockers and Billy crowded his space. He inhaled the choking taste of cigarettes and hairspray, and felt a smirk pull onto his lips because he _wanted_ this.

Steve wanted the frustration in Billy’s blue eyes to boil over and the curl of his fist in the collar of his shirt to break the exhausted fog that clouded his mind. He wanted to _feel_ something so unadulteratedly honest, and real, and pure like nothing since the tunnels and the mind flayer.

He wanted to prove Dustin wrong because he wasn’t bullied, it had _never_ been bullying because Steve wanted it.

Billy’s smirk was dangerous and tilted, and Steve could read everything that he wanted out of this. Billy wanted fear to hang in Steve’s eyes, wanted something to justify violent action beyond just desire for it. He could work with anger, work with indignity, because Billy wanted to the big man. He wanted to be _king_.

A king was nothing to a man with nothing to lose and a regime change wasn’t possible without blood but Steve was too tired to give him either, “You’re just asking for me to beat your pretty little face in, aren’t ya, Harrington? The first time wasn’t enough?”

“You cheated.” Steve’s voice was even and calm as his heart pounded deafening in his ears. “You _broke_ a plate on my head to get the upper hand.”

Billy laughed and wiped at his nose almost as if he was remembering the blood that had been there. He slammed his fist into the lockers on both sides of Steve’s head, leaned in so close he felt his breath against his cheek, “You got a death wish or something, Harrington?”

Steve thought of Barb, of Bob, and Benny, and all those scientists that had to have died. He thought of baseball bats, and bloody nails, and the burnt smell of Demogorgon flesh, and he tried to grin through the grimace, “Nah, I’m just not afraid of you.”

Billy nodded at that and then shoved his hand into Steve’s open locker, tipping out the rest of his textbooks and papers before slamming his fist into the locker beside Steve’s head again. He startled and Billy grinned, “You should be, Harrington.”

Then he was gone and Steve could breathe. He waited until Billy disappeared around the corner before allowing himself to slide down the lockers to the floor. He clenched his shaking hands into fist and forced himself into some semblance of calm. His hand shook as he gathered his stuff.

“Need help?”

Steve didn’t have to look up from the bleached-white Keds and the matching socks in front of him to know that it was Nancy. He sighed, asking himself just how much worse the day could get before shaking the thought from his mind because the probable answer was _a lot_. He was never not convinced that the floor would not open up and drop him into some parallel universe hellscape.

“I’m good.”

“Are you sure?” She asked, crouching down in front of him and helping gather up his things. She met his eyes with the same awkward uneasiness that plagued their every interaction since that night at the Byers house. They weren’t quite friends, they weren’t quite anything, and Steve had been avoiding her until he figured out how to rid himself of the pain in his chest when he saw her.

Her eyes flickered over his shoulder and she bit her lips. It was almost tangible that she had something to say, “Is he still bothering you?”

“No one is fucking bothering me, Nance,” he snapped and then sighed, _defensive_. Dustin had told him that Nancy was worried about him because he was defensive. “Shit, sorry, I’m just- I’m going to be late for class.”

“Steve, you’re bleeding.”

He looked at his shoulder and stain bleeding through his jacket, and shrugged. He took his stuff from her and shoved half of it into his locker and bolted before she could get in another word, “Talk to you later, Nancy.”

 

 

“You look tired.”

Steve’s eyes flickered up from their blank stare at his open textbook and the empty notebook page in front of him, and then back down to the unsolved Trig problems, “Is that your way of saying I look like shit, Nance?”

“That is my way of saying that you look tired,” She told him softly, taking the empty seat across from him at his empty lunch table. “I don’t usually see you in here.”

“It’s raining.”

“Oh,” She smiled, digging into her back for her lunch and then pushing it across the table between them. “Did you eat?”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t see-“

“Are you stalking me now, Nancy?” He asked sarcastically. “Get any pointers from Byers?”

She gave him an unimpressed look but didn’t justify him with a response other than to push her Tupperware of leftover potato salad closer to him, “You look like you were about to fall asleep in art history.”

“I was,” He replied smoothly, pointedly pushing the container back over to her. “Art history is a boring elective. You typically sit with the drama club so what’s up?”

She followed his eyes as they drifted passed her to the drama table where they were none-too-subtlety sneaking glance at the two of them and whispering. She rolled her eyes as she turned back to Steve, “I told you that you’re welcome to sit with us.”

“They’ll spend the whole time trying to convince me to be in the Spring musical.”

“I promise they won’t,” She told him and then sighed, “So, uh, what was all that about in the hallway this morning?”

“What was what about?”

“With Billy,” She stated, knowing that he knew what she meant and not giving him the option of playing dumb. She reached across the table, rubbing her dainty fingers along the frayed ends of the tear in his jacket, “Did he hurt you?”

“I caught it on a door, it’s fine,” He pulled his arm away, figuring that was close enough to the truth to get her off his back. “It was nothing, Nance, just some…basketball humor. Guy stuff.”

“Guy stuff.”

“Yep,” He made a popping sound with his mouth on the end of the word and gave her a shrug. “Guys are dumb, it’s just the way we are.”

“Guy stuff includes knocking someone else’s stuff on the floor?’ She asked dully. “And shoving them into lockers, and threatening them. And let me guess, Steve, guy stuff includes concussions and-“

“Yeah, sometimes,” He snapped. “Get off my back, Nancy.”

“Steve-“

“What do you want, Nance?” He asked tiredly, letting his eyes glance back to all of his unfinished math questions. “I have to finish this homework before next period.”

“I just-“ She bit her lip. “We’re friends, right?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“So, you know that you can tell me anything,” She told him. “Mike told me what happened after we left and I – well, you don’t talk about it, about any of it.”

“Because it’s over,” Steve stated, checking his watch and then closing his book. He gathered up all his unfinished homework before fixing her with a look he hoped displayed honesty, “I’ve been up late studying for midterms, you know, making notecards and all that. The gates are closed, I’m fine.”

“Steve-“ She stopped him as he stood, a hand wrapped around his wrist and Steve suddenly felt all too aware of the number of eyes on him. He pulled his hand away and she let him, “You can tell me if there is anything bothering you. We used to talk all the time.”

No, they really didn’t.

They used to fight all the time. He used to listen as she ranted about Barb and telling her parents, and they drank so not to have to talk about the guilt that ate at them both. It took Steve a while to realize that his bitterness was not with Nancy, not with Jonathan, but with himself because he _had_ loved her. He loved her and he wasn’t good enough, and it just…hurt.

“You don’t talk much anymore.”

Steve didn’t have much to say anymore. In comparison to what they’d seen, what they knew, did small talk really matter anymore? Did basketball really matter, or trigonometry, or anything?

He sighed, “I’m going to class.”

 

“Mr. Harrington?”

Steve blinked, his eyes coming into focus on the green and gold _Go Tigers!_ banner over the chalkboard and then to Mrs. Gonzales’ expectant face, “Yes?”

He heard snickering to his right and then to his left, and Mrs. Gonzales sighed, “I trust that you were paying attention?”

“Yeah.”

“Then you can tell me the solution I just gave to number sixteen.”

“I could,” Steve said slowly, the snickering spreading until it circled him like a buzz in his ear. He could feel heat flush the skin on the back of his neck and start to spread to his face. “I could but since we were all paying very close attention, it would be redundant.”

“Humor me.”

“Oh, I’m not a comedian, Mrs. Gonzales,” He smiled, his chapped lips cracking. “Better ask Byers, Teach.”

Steve’s smile fell as the heat of watchful eyes shifted away, and Jonathan stuttered out a response that he hadn’t even bothered to listen to. Nancy’s words playing in his head, _if anything is bothering you_.

Anything – she didn’t say someone, thought it was a someone she was speaking of. They all meant it because they all thought he was weak, that something had to be broken in him that people like Billy Hargrove and Tommy H would targeted.

They spoke to him as if he was breaking to pieces, like they were all just so fucking _normal_. It made him sick.

Nancy talked of formals and committees like she didn’t join them just so she’d have so little time to think of anything else. She was pretending, like he was pretending, like Jonathan was pretending that the cold weather didn’t bother him.

“Mr. Harrington?”

Steve didn’t let his annoyance show, “Yes.”

“May I see you after class?”

“Of course, Mrs. Gonzales.”

Mrs. Gonzales was well meaning and too invested. She wished that he would speak with the guidance counselor because his slipping grades and his lack of attention worried her more than his bruised face. She believed that he’d been through an ‘incident,’ the same incident that beat his face in. It was almost laughable how benign the bruises were in comparison to everything else that happened that night.

Steve’s life was an auto-cruise. His classes passed with barely a blink and he dug his toes into the bottom of his shoes during basket practice only to be knock off his feet anyways. He showered, and he dressed, and he waited in the chill of cold winds and winter rain.

It almost hurt, the rain like ice dripping down his bare arms and clinging to his hair still damp from the showers as he stood leaning against his car outside of the middle school.

“How are you holding up?” Jonathan asked with his hands shoved in his pockets after he got out of his own car. It was a tentative step towards forming a friendship that had never been there before. Steve had extended no olive branch and he would not take hold of Jonathan’s.

Jonathan shouldn’t _want_ to be his friend. “You look a little…”

“I didn’t sleep well last night, alright.”

“Okay,” Jonathan nodded, caught slightly off guard by the edge in Steve’s tone. “Is it night-“

“It’s my neighbor’s bitch of a dog,” He said too defensively. He knew that Byers knew that none of his neighbors had dogs, neither of them commented on it. “You can tell Nancy to stop worrying, man.”

“Nancy didn’t tell me to talk to you.”

“Okay.”

“Steve-“

“Those dipshits are nerding out over stupid microphones or some shit,” He said suddenly, antsy to move, to escape. “I’ll get them or we’ll be here forever.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thanks to everyone that commented, left kudos, bookmarked, and subscribed!


	3. Chapter 3

“Just spit it out.”

“What?”

Dustin almost looked startled by the firm command directed towards him, stopping short and falling out of step in the group retreat from the AV room. He looked surprised by Steve’s fixed pointed stare at him and then confused by his words, “It’s written all over your guilty little face, you have something to say. Spit it out.”

Dustin stuttered and Steve continued in a slight whisper, “What is it? Adopt another interdimensional alien as a pet?”

“That what _one_ time!”

Steve snickered, scuffing his shoe against the mute-colored ceramic tiles, “Come on, man, what is it? I know, it’s something.”

A conflicted look passed over Dustin’s face and he winced the farther behind the rest of the group that they fell. Steve got a cold feeling in his gut like dread and the Upside Down, and he wondered if word traveled fast between the high school and the middle school. He felt something akin to horror at the thought of his scuffle with Billy in the hallway being newsworthy enough to trickle down to the ears of middle schoolers, of middle school kids thinking that he was bullied, _weak_.

He had seen the surprised looks on each of the boys’ faces when he appeared in the doorway of the AV room and the way they all looked kind of guilty when he told to move their asses. He had seen the undecipherable look shared between them and he wasn’t sure if he wished he could decipher it or not.

He took a deep breath, “Just say what you have to say, Dustin.”

Just, get this over with.

“Not here,” He said in a low hiss that sounded almost like a whine. He grabbed onto Steve’s wrist and pulled him towards the front exit behind the rest of them, “Jesus, Steve, I can’t say it here. Come on.”

“It a secret?” Steve asked, a slight amusement coming through the frustration of the day. Dustin wasn’t blessed with an abundance of tact, if it was about Billy than he would had said it but if it was – “Is it about a girl?”

“What? No.”

“Is it about _Max_?” He asked. “Do you have a new crush?”

“Steve don’t – get that look off your face.”

Steve grinned, winking at the kid, “This is just my face.”

“What are you doing? Don’t wink at – wait, where’s your coat?” Dustin asked, stopping just shy of the exit’s door. It closed shut in front of him after Lucas passed through and stayed shut when Dustin put a blocking hand in front of it. He cut a wary look at Steve, “You can literally see your breath outside and you’re wearing basketball shorts and no coat. You had a _scarf_ this morning, Steve.”

“Nice observation, Mom,” Steve muttered with a roll of his eyes, feeling chastised for no reason. He shoved Dustin’s arm from the door and pushed it open, letting the cold air flood him, “Coat’s in the car, hurry up.”

“Did someone steal it?”

“I swear to god,” He groaned. “Do you need hearing aids? Is your hair too fluffy that you can’t hear anything? I just said that it’s _in_ the car.”

“That’s hard to believe,” Dustin said to him, cutting in front of Steve on the steps and crossing his arms over his chest. “I find it really hard to believe that _you_ don’t have your coat considering that you refused to move the car this morning until I went back inside and got my coat.”

“What’s your point?” He asked tiredly. “My coat is in the car.”

“What about your pants?” He asked instantly, moving when Steve tried to walk around him to block his path. Steve just barely resisted rolling his eyes into the next week because Jonathan wasn’t even trying to be subtle about watching them over the top of Will’s head.  

He wondered what he’d tell Nancy as Dustin continued, “Those in the car, too? You were wearing _jeans_ this morning, Steve. Did someone steal them from your locker?”

“Who would someone want my jeans?”

“Who would want Hailey McNeil’s inhaler? I don’t know, but someone stole that from her locker.”

“No one stole my jeans, stop.”

“So, you’re telling me that you’re just a moron that really wants frostbite then.”

Steve ran his hand down his face and didn’t stop his eyes rolling this time, “No. No, I’m just the moron that is about to let your ass walk home if you don’t stop being so fucking concerned about mine.”

“So, either way, you’re still a moron?”

“I just got out of practice,” Steve pressed passed Dustin’s question with little more than a withered glare. He bit his tongue against snapping that he really didn’t have to justify anything he fucking did to a thirteen year old in a Star Trek t-shirt.

He swallowed down jumbled explanation about barely sleeping, and being tired, and not having the energy to fix his hand and get dressed so he picked one over the other. He gritted his teeth against blabbing that he wanted to feel the bite of winter air, wanted the cold to freeze the fog in his brain, and he said instead, “Practice ran over.”

He ducked his head and ran his hands through his damp hair and gave what he hoped was a believable lie, “I thought I was going to be late picking you up, didn’t want you waiting out in the cold so I rushed. No one stole my shit or whatever, got it?”

Dustin narrowed his eyes before stating in a dull monotone, “You have scrawny legs.”

“And you’re short, kiddo.”

“Good one, Steve.”

“Yeah, I thought it was,” He hummed, giving Dustin a shove towards the car. “Let’s go.”

The notion that he would be able to leave practice, get Dustin, and get home within the hour was a testament to Steve’s sleep deprivation because it was a delusional thought at best and fucking impossible at most.

After the fourth _just one more second, Steve_ and _I swear, this is the last thing, Steve_ , after too many to count _oh yeah, and…_ Steve gave up on trying to leave and climbed into his car. He ran through his daily check for government issued spy gadgets in his air vents and visors, fiddled with the radio dials, and then grabbed his coat from the backseat and draped it over his shoulders. He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against his steering wheel, and sigh. He’d give them one more minute, just one.

Steve’s head snapped up from his slouched position against the steering wheel and his neck ached with the movement, any trace of sleep dissipated into a near panic as the passenger side door was pulled open. Dustin dropped his backpack onto the floor and poked his head in, “You awake?”

Steve blinked and grumbled something, not quite ready for words when his heart was trying to escape through his chest. Dustin appeared to accept that as an answer because he disappeared out of the car again, shouting over the hood, “Steve’s awake, Jonathan, we’re fine now.”

He let his eyes drift out his window, feeling fuzzy and overheated, and…like a huge idiot when he found Jonathan staring at him with stupid concern on his face. Steve offered a slight smile and gave him a thumb’s up, grumbling, “Dustin, get in the car.”

“Sorry ‘bout that, Mike was having a crisis,” He winced as he dropped into his chair, before putting on his seatbelt and adjusting the heating after Steve started the car. “It’s freezing in here, bet you wish you had pants on.”

Steve glared at him, “It’s _six_ o’clock, you’ve been talking for like – like three hours.”

“Yeah, it was a _crisis_ ,” Dustin explained, watching as Jonathan’s Galaxie pulled out of its spot. “He’s going to ask El to the dance in a few weeks but he doesn’t think that Hopper is going to let her leave. We can leave now.”

“Oh?” Steve asked sarcastically, putting his car in reverse. “ _Now_ , we can leave? Next time, I’m just going to let your ass walk home.”

“Yeah, well, we could have left an hour ago but someone was getting their beauty sleep in the front seat of their car,” Dustin replied, equally as sarcastic. “And by the looks of it, you need a hell of a lot more of – wait? What’s that?”

Steve slammed on the breaks at the sudden shift in Dustin’s tone, eyes scanning the horizon for a threat, “What’s what?”

“That.” Dustin pushed up Steve’s sleeve and jabbed his pudgy fingers into the bandage that was slightly obscured beneath. He squinted at it suspiciously and then up at Steve, “What is that?”

Steve had no right to feel like he just got caught in the middle of a lie but he did anyways, pulling his arm away as he pulled out of the Hawkins Middle School parking lot, “It’s a band-aid.”

“No, no, it’s really not,” Dustin pointed out, jabbing at it repeatedly until Steve pushed his hand away and told him to knock it off. “It looks like you taped a wad of toilet paper to your arm.”

He cocked his head to the side and squinted farther, pointing at the bandage again. Steve knocked his hand away, “Hey!”

“Why did you tape a wad of toilet paper to your arm?”

Steve refused to look away from the road, refusing to acknowledge the weight of the kid’s gaze studying him or the way the car suddenly felt very fully and very empty all at once, the way everything went still and silent as Dustin waited for an answer.

Finally, Steve pressed his lips together and offered a short explanation, “I was bleeding.”

“Obviously,” Dustin scoffed. “Why?”

“Bleeding is the normal human response of the body when it is damaged, yeah?”

“ _Steve_.”

“Fine, I cut my arm,” He shrugged, coming to a stop at a red light. He shook head of the sleepy fog invading his vision and ignored the unimpressed glare heating his face. “There’s a piece of metal in my locker that sticks out, I caught my arm on it this morning. It bled.”

“Yeah, how’d you do that?”

“Why do you care?” Steve asked and then sucked in a breath. He did not have to look to Dustin to know that his response was the wrong one so he ploughed through with a rushed answer, “I was running late and wasn’t paying attention. My jacket got caught on it, it cut me. Interrogating over, yeah?”

“Why didn’t you get a real band-aid,” He asked. “From like, the nurse or something.”

“Because I didn’t feel like it.”

Steve didn’t say anything more and Dustin didn’t ask, he just watched Steve adjust his mirrors with a sullen expression. The silence stretched between them with uncomfortable heat before he finally said, “You know, if Billy is bothering you-“

Steve heaved a sigh so loud that he might as well had just said that he didn’t want to have this discussion _again_ , not that Dustin would have been persuaded otherwise. He pressed on with a sigh of his own, “Steve.”

“There is nothing going on with me and anyone, kid.”

“If you say so,” Dustin hummed, disbelief coloring his voice as he slouched back into his seat without much else to say. The air in the car continued to grow hot with heat and unspoken tension, and Steve kind of hated it. He was almost relieved when Dustin spoke again, “You know, I moved here in fourth grade.”

“I – I didn’t,” Steve answered, shifting his gaze from the road to Dustin for a moment. The kid wasn’t looking at him, his gaze on something beyond the window. “I didn’t know that, at all, actually. I kind of just assumed – you’re all really good friends, I thought… Well, that’s, uh, cool? My family isn’t from Hawkins either.”

“When I got here, this kid, Troy, didn’t like me,” Dustin told him. “He still doesn’t actually, but it’s not like I ever did anything to him expect like, _exist_ in his general direction or something. He used to make fun of me a lot, for my hair and my teeth, and because I didn’t have any friends. I got really quiet.”

“…That sucks?”

“Yeah, it did,” Dustin agreed, nodding. “He used to tell people not to be my friend, made up all these lies about me so people thought I was weird and would stop talking to me. It sucked.”

Steve felt something tight beneath his ribcage, like fights and Demogorgons in confined hallways, and it stole his breath from him in a silent rage. It outraged the way his heart ached at the slight way Dustin’s voice dipped from explanatory into something soft because it hurt to talk about even now.

Steve’s own voice sounded stolen from him when he breathed out a sorry, “Kid.”

“I didn’t tell anyone because I didn’t want to be a tattle-tale,” Dustin continued, eyes glued to the window still. “My parents just got divorced and my mom was really happy about being back in Hawkins because she’s from here, and she just got Mews, and well… I just really wanted her to be happy, you know.”

“I didn’t want to bother her,” He added. “It wasn’t like they were beating me up or anything so, I didn’t say anything about it and Troy kept picking on me. I hated it.”

Steve ran his hand down his face and through his mused hair, he felt suddenly very old, and very tired, like he could feel every ache and bruise he’d received from rough basketball practices, “Dustin.”

“ _But_ one day,” He continued, speaking louder than Steve’s own voice. “One day, Troy got all these other kids to join in on making fun of me because it was easy, I wasn’t going to go to the teachers and they knew it. They were making fun of my teeth when Mike heard, and he yelled at them to all go away or _he’d_ tell on them. He asked if I wanted to eat lunch with him and his friends, that’s how I met Lucas and Will.”

“Then the next day,” Dustin stated in a cheerier voice, “he asked Mrs. Nolan if I could sit with him and Will, and we started eating lunch together every day, even did the science fair together and won.”

Steve frowned at the second red light in front of him and willed it to change faster. In the following silence of Dustin’s story, Steve felt overly hot and his heart ached the way it did when he was embarrassed. He grasped for the first straws he could find and stated, “If that punk is still messing with you, I-“

“You’re missing the point,” Dustin sighed with a level of exasperation that he usually reserved for when Steve didn’t understand his geek references. “Don’t think too hard, Steve, I know it’s not your strong suit.”

“ _Hey_.”

“I am telling you this story because I kept quiet,” He explained. “I was miserable for months because of it, and I know that you are miserable now because someone _is_ bothering you. Telling Mike made me feel better even if it didn’t make Troy stop bothering us. You should tell someone.”

“Tell Nancy,” Dustin suggested with a shrug, eyeing Steve now. “I know things are still weird with you guys but she’s very understanding, or Jonathan. Or tell Hopper, or me. Hell, tell anyone, Steve.” 

“ _If_ someone was bothering me than I would,” Steve said defensively. “But no one is bothering me so drop this stupid and – and _wrong_ theory, Dustin.”

“I’m just trying to help.”

“I’m the one that supposed to be looking out for you,” Steve said through his teeth. “Not the other way around.”

“It’s a two-way street, dude. You took a beating for Lucas, we owe you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“You’re my friend,” Dustin told him, seriously. “Friends don’t let friends get beat up.”

“No one is beating me up.”

“Yeah, where’d that bruise come from?” Dustin asked, jabbing his finger into the black and blue flesh on Steve’s knee. “It wasn’t a demo-dog.”

“Basketball practice.”

He jabbed at a fresh bruise on the back of Steve’s arm, “And that one?”

“I fell out of bed this morning.”

“Why are you being so difficult about this?”

Because it wasn’t just Billy, or Tommy, or any singular person, and it wasn’t a goddamn problem, Steve just barely held his tongue from snapping. Because he’d faced down Demogorgons with only a bat and no fucking clue what was going on so he should be able to handle the likes of Billy Hargrove, or Tommy, and all the so-called friends of King Steve’s that abandoned him.

He didn’t need the help of a bunch of middle school nerds, or his ex-girlfriend, or fucking Jonathan Byers.

Steve, more or less, had the same relationship with his parents as one did with an absentee landlord since he was eleven years old. He was good on his own, he was fucking great at dealing with his own shit. He didn’t need anyone to fight his battles for him.

“Steve,” Dustin said, voice coated in a layer of concern and soft the way you spoke to spooked animals. Steve blinked at the green light in front of him and then at the way Dustin’s eyes were heavy with apprehension and worry, “You were just staring off at nothing. You okay?”

“Just thinking,” Steve replied, stepping on the gas. “About my parents.”

“Are they back yet?”

“Their trip was extended,” He shrugged, forcing the tension in his shoulders to recoil with the movement. His voice sounded biting when it had no right to be. “It’s nothing. What was so secretive that you couldn’t say it in front of your friends.”

“It’s nothing.”

Steve shot him an irritated look at the grumble in his voice and then sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, “Why not?”

“I don’t want to ask if you’re in a shitty mood.”

“I’m not in a shitty mood,” Steve snapped. He held up a hand to stop Dustin’s predictable response and forced himself to calm down, “Dustin, please.”

“Fine,” He sighed dramatically and then spoke in a rush of scrambled words so fast that Steve could barely make heads or tails of it. “Got that?”

Steve replayed the words in his head, slowing them down, and then he squinted his eyes, “You want me to…”

Steve’s introduction into the party, or fellowship, or whatever the fuck Dustin and his friends called their geek group had been one of the funniest and saddest moments of Steve’s whole damn existence.

He had been eighty percent sure they had been joking when they showed up at his front door a week after the gates were closed and propositioned him about his proven loyalties and if he wanted to join their geek squad. He was pretty sure that they hadn’t expected him to shrug his shoulders and say ‘sure’ but he had, even he doesn’t really know why.

He was ninety percent sure that they were definitely just fucking with him when his introduction ceremony in the Wheeler’s basement included him butchering some made up elf language and doing a truly horrid rendition of the Safety Dance while balancing on one foot. He hadn’t really minded making himself look like an idiot because Will had looked more animated than he’d ever seen.

The final act of the ceremony had been a tense and serious affair, sat in a circle under a blanket fort as it was explained to him in too many voices that he had to share a secret with the group, that the party was about trust and friendship and that there was no greater test of that than sharing something embarrassing.

They each shared theirs with him and Steve offered a secret of his own. A secret that he regretted the moment he told those assholes about the dance lessons his mother forced him to take for five years.” 

“I want you to teach me how to dance, yeah.”

Dustin blinked at Steve expectantly as if the very suggestion wasn’t completely and utterly out of left field and just…mortifyingly absurd. Steve wondered if Dustin was just too young to be embarrassed about things or if he didn’t have the capacity to feel shame. He was pretty sure that he could feel – and did feel – shame at that age, “No.”

“Why not?” He seemed genuinely surprised by Steve’s answer, as if he hadn’t considered that he’d be turned down. “I’ll clean out your car, give you all my lunch money. Whatever you want.”

“I want you not to ask me that ever again.”

“Steve,” He whined with all that same end-of-the-world exasperation he had demanded Steve’s help to track down Dart. “It is detrimental to the future of my – my life, Steve. _My life_! If I can’t dance than how am I supposed to ask anyone to dance with me at the Snowball?”

“Just…sway,” Steve shrugged, frowning down at Dustin’s muddy boots and the papers spilt from his open backpack on the floor. “You’re cleaning out my car anyways, slob.”

“I’ll tell my mom that you won’t help me and she’ll call your mom.”

Steve raised an eyebrow, “Good luck with that.”

“…I’ll do your homework?”

“No.”

“ _Steve!_ ” He exclaimed. “You’re the only one that knows how!”

“You…” Steve sighed. “You said that could never be used against me.”

“It’s not like I’m blackmailing you.”

“Really?” He asked. “Because this feels like blackmail.”

“It’s more bargaining than anything,” Dustin replied. “I’m not going to tell anyone, I just want you to teach me how to dance. Come on, Steve, be the big brother I never had.”

“No.”

“Jonathan is teaching Will.”

Steve rolled his eyes, “I don’t care.”

“You’re going to let me make a fool of my myself?”

“Yeah, there is nothing I’m going to be able to do that will prevent you from making a fool of yourself,” Steve stated. “You’re already a fool.”

“Fuck you, Steve.”

“Hey,” He snapped his fingers as he pulled up outside of the Henderson’s residence and then pointed warningly at Dustin, “Watch your fucking language, kid.”  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been writing Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 fanfic for months now so this fic has been an absolute blast so far and I am so very grateful for everybody that has commented, left kudos, and bookmarked this fic because I was a little wary about posting it.


	4. Chapter 4

Steve had long stopped questioning when he lost control over his life.

Control had been slipping through his fingers much longer than the backseat of his BMW had been infested with candy wrappers and the crumbled-up ideas for science fair projects. It’s lack of presence was almost as permanent as the stains of grubby middle school fingerprint all over his leather.

Long before he became Nancy Wheeler’s boyfriend and became Nancy Wheeler’s ex, before the falling reign of King Steve, before Demogorgons, and demo-dogs, and the Upside Down being kind of right-side up, he had stopped expecting that he had control of his destination.

He was a Harrington.

There were expectations that he was meant to live up to, shoes he was meant to fill. He could be Steve all he wanted but at the end of the day, he was expected to be a Harrington. He was expected to go to his father’s alma mater, work for his father’s publishing company, and settle down with a nice normal girl. He would die mediocre and unhappy but he wouldn’t be the family disappointment and for so long, that had been alright.

Control was elusive and Steve had always taken whatever he could get but at some point, he had to wonder when he gave up even the little he thought he had.

Sitting at the Henderson’s kitchen table on a Sunday morning with three days of no sleep and a barely passing C in physics, he accepted it. Listening halfhearted while Dustin tried to make heads of tails out of Steve’s take home physic exam on the phone with Mr. Clark, he gave up wondering if he’d ever get control back.

As he scribbled out step-by-step directions to the electric slide, the hustle, and every dance he could remember seeing on MTV, Steve stopped wondering when he had hit rock bottom and started questioning when he picked up a shovel and started digging.

It was a sinking feeling that hit incredibly low in his gut, that burnt red and hot with a sickly churn and raised to flush the skin behind his ears with a shame deeper than he’d ever felt as he listened to broken down explanations that made more sense to a thirteen year old than it ever would to him. It was a feeling that only grew, overtaking his ears in heat and attacking the space behind his eyes when he exchanged the ripped-out pages of dance moves from his notebook for the physics problems from Dustin’s.

He grabbed his backpack and swung it over his shoulder, “Alright, thanks.”

“ _Steve_.”

“What?”

“This is not teaching me,” Dustin whined. He frowned at the directions before shoving the papers back across the table. “This is just… this is garbage, Steve, total shit. And I can’t read your handwriting.”

“Because you don’t know how to read.”

Steve’s voice sounded dull even to his own ears, sounded echoed and void of humor or annoyance, or anything. His tongue felt heavy with all the excuses sat upon it, all the denials and refusals, and so many explanations that they never specified _how_ Steve would teach him.

He was tired and running on empty, and Steve wanted nothing more than to climb back into bed with his nightmares and stare at the ceiling until he was sure he was crazy. That thought was ripped from him as the notes were ripped from his hands, “Hey-“

He did not want to teach Dustin to dance, he did not want to teach anyone but Dustin was glaring and talking, and Steve was just becoming aware of it when he had nothing to occupy his hands. He sighed, “Seriously, Dustin-“

“No,” He said harshly, pulling the notes out of the way of Steve’s reaching hand, “You don’t get these.”

“Give me-“ Steve huffed through his teeth, getting up from the table only for Dustin to shove the pages into the front of his pants. “Why would you – seriously?” 

“Yes, seriously.”

“That’s gross.” Steve felt his shoulders slump forward. “Come on, man. I need to pass physics.”

“A deal is a deal, Steve,” He stated. “I help you with your exam and you teach me to dance.”

“I did-“

“This,” Dustin waved Steve’s directions in the air and then crumbled them into a ball, “This is not teaching, this is bullshit. No dancing, no A+ for you, got it.”

“But-“

“Got it?”

“Fine, but two dances,” Steve bargained, feeling a tired kind of exhaustion weigh heavy in his feet. “Just two, got it?”

“Got it,” Dustin grinned, giving the notes back to Steve. “We have to wait until Will gets here.”

“I thought Jonathan was teaching him.”

“Yeah, he was.”

 

“Is there a reason that we can’t do this inside?”

It was a warm day for early December, warm enough to warrant only thick sweaters and light jackets but it was also Indiana. No one wanted to be outside in it for long even if there was enough chill in the air to wake Steve’s sleeping senses.

The seeping cold starved off any frost still left on his thoughts and cleared away the fog clouding the corners of his eyes, it woke his bones and beat his heart. The cold made him feel alert, aware, alive.

Or maybe it was the coffee.

He took a sip of the thermos Dustin handed him and shook the thought of Mike’s retold words from inside his ears, _‘He likes it cold.’_

“Mom is shampooing the carpet today,” Dustin said as way of explanation, shaking Steve from his thoughts with his heaving breathes as he dragged the stereo from his room outside. He sat it down heavily on the concrete of the front porch and then gave Steve an expectant look, “You couldn’t have helped?”

“No.”

“Whatever, dude,” Dustin muttered as he dropped down beside Steve on the front step. “Something smells, uh, dead in my room, she’s having the house cleaned.”

“Is that where-“

“Yep.”

Steve grimaced at the thought of the too many sharp teeth of Dart’s faceless mouth and all those pictures of Mews tacked up over the neighborhood as a lost cat. He felt sorry for Mrs. Henderson because the loss of her beloved pet was a lot worse than all the many things Steve had lost to the Upside Down.

He felt inadequate feeling sorry for his sleepless nights and his shaky paranoia when she lost an innocent animal that she loved and loved her back.

He shook that from his mind and narrowed out his frown into a blank straight line before turning to Dustin. He watched as the kid struggle with a knotted jumble of extension cords before it was all shoved into his own unexpecting arms, “Make yourself useful, Steve.”

“I’m teaching you to dance, aren’t I?”

“I don’t see you moving, twinkle-toes,” Dustin shot back, laughing as he ducked out of the way of Steve’s hand. “I borrowed cassettes from Nancy, they’re in my room. Do you need help with that or-“

“I got this handled, shithead,” Steve waved him off, already going to work on untangling the cords. It, at least, gave him something to focus on that didn’t leave his mind wandering to narrowing tunnels and the feeling of it all closing in on him.

He breathed in the cold air and let it freeze the back of his throat before burning it away with coffee. He sighed to himself, at least he’d pass physics.

Steve didn’t say anything when Will showed up bundled up in a thick coat, gloves, and a scarf. He hardly acknowledged the car that pulled into the driveway with anything beyond stiff shoulders and, for some reason, an awkward salute.

He ignored the conversation between Will and Jonathan that carried on the air as he focused on untangling the cords. He tried to ignore Dustin running passed him and the louder exclamation of Steve being volunteered to drive Will back home.

Once he had no more knots to fiddle with, Steve sighed and climbed to his feet. He nudged Dustin in the shoulder and hooked his thumb back to the house, “Fixed your cords, shithead, go plug up.”

When the kids ran off, Steve stuck his hands in his pockets awkwardly and told Jonathan, “I’ll have the kid home by four, this shouldn’t take that long.”

“You’re really going to teach them to dance?” Jonathan asked, a half-amused tilt of his lip was the only give away that he thought this was as amusing as Steve thought it was humiliation.

“Yeah,” He said plainly, “I’m about to go all Jane Fonda on their asses. They have no clue what’s coming.”

Jonathan laughed, “Well, good luck. Mom and I weren’t ‘cool’ enough to teach Will, he insisted that he come here.”

“Yeah, well, he’s going to be disappointed,” Steve said with a laugh, feeling a heat raise to his face. “It’s all just swaying, they already know that.”

Jonathan nodded, his small smile pulling his thin lips into a frown. Steve knew the question before it was even asked, “Are you, uh, sleeping well, Steve? You don’t look too good.”

“I-“

“Steve, I need help!”

Steve turned around suddenly, “I, uh, got to go.”

“Yeah, I, uh, I’ve got work so I better get going,” Jonathan said awkwardly, giving Steve an out to a conversation he didn’t want to have. “Thanks for this, Steve.”

“Uh, yeah, no problem.”

Steve watched Jonathan drive off, not turning away from the road until the car was out of his sight and then he sighed, “I’m coming, shitheads, what did you do?”

“Cassette is stuck.”

Steve rolled his eyes, “Great.”

He had already resigned himself with the fact that he was going to have to drive Dustin’s ass across town to replace the cassette as he pulled the last of the ruined tape from the stereo. He hadn’t heard Will walk up beside him until his soft voice startled him, “I thought you’d be wearing leg warmers or something.”

Steve’s lip twitched upwards, “I thought you would be.”

Will’s smile was soft and his eyes looked as exhausted as Steve felt, he couldn’t help but wonder how much sleep the kid was getting when Steve slept so few. He wondered if the kid was as okay as everyone assured him he was, “Thanks for teaching us all how to dance.”

“Yeah?” Steve asked, ruffling Will’s hair. “No problem, kid.”

“You look tired, Steve.”

“Well, we’re up at the ass crack of dawn, kid,” Steve kept his voice in a forced lightness that he was almost positive the kid could see through. Will’s eyes were piercing like that, world-heavy and knowing.

“It’s noon, Steve.”

“It’s _Sunday_ ,” He pointed out.

He forced himself to smile in the hopes that it kept the bite of defense smothered under his tired exhaustion and kept his exhaustion trapped beneath his thin façade and caffeine buzz. Will was a sweet kid, too goddamn innocent for this world, and Steve refused to add to the burden he already carried.

Will had been possessed by a -whatever – mind frayer and Steve could understand why the kid would worry but it was all misplaced. Steve was fine, he’d just need time, so he skewed the kid’s hat by pulling it down over his eyes before informing him, “I’m fine, kiddo.”

“Grown-ups say that all the time and don’t actually mean it.”

“That’s true,” Steve shrugged, crouching down so he and Will were on eye level. He leaned in and told him, “Between you and me, I’m not really a grown-up. I’m just a bigger...tired kid, like you.”

Will laughed at that, “Really?”

“Sure thing, kiddo,” He nodded. “Now, what did you mean by _we_?”

“Didn’t Dustin tell you?”

“He should as fucking didn’t – DUSTIN! What did he mean by _we_?”

Dustin startled in the doorway, the three mugs of his mother’s hot chocolate nearly lost their contents as his eyes went wide. He rolled his eyes and then groaned, “Will, you weren’t supposed to tell him.”

“I didn’t know it was a secret!”

“Dustin, I swear to fuck, what-“

“Lucas is coming,” Dustin shrugged, shoving a mug into Steve’s hand. “He’s planning on dancing with Max. _Max_ , Steve. She’ll like, tear him apart with her bare hands if he can’t dance.”

“I never-“

“The party helps each other,” Dustin stressed and Steve sighed.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and reminded himself that passing physics was something he had to do to graduate, “Fine.”

Steve didn’t say a word when Lucas showed up halfway through his explanation on why the most important part and the whole damn point of middle school dances was the slow dance and if he was going to teach them anything than they better fucking dance with a girl. He gritted his teeth and restarted his explanation when Lucas insisted on it but he hadn’t said a word otherwise.

He didn’t even snap _much_ when the boys started asking questions and arguing over each other.

He said nothing until Mike dropped his bike in the front yard, “Oh, come on!”

“What?” Dustin asked innocently. “We need to know how to dance.”

“I never said-“

“You said two dances,” He stated in rehearsed words. “You didn’t say how many people you taught them to.”

“You’re such a little-“

“You haven’t even taught us one,” Lucas pointed out. “And Mike asked El, _Steve_.”

“Yeah, he can’t screw up her first dance.”

“I’m not going to screw it up!” Mike insisted.

Steve turned to him, “Then why are you here?”

“To see you look like an idiot,” Mike shot back, crossing is arms. Steve narrowed his eyes at him and Mike narrowed his back, “You haven’t even started and you already do.”

“I like you the least,” Steve told him.

Mike shrugged, “I like you the least, too.”

“ _Anyways_ ,” Dustin cut in. “Mike is taking El and it’s her first dance _ever_ , we – _Mike_ – wants it to be perfect. She did save the world, she deserves it.”

“You sway, that is all you need to do,” Steve explained. “Sway and keep your hands on her waist. Nowhere lower, got that? Her dad is the chief of police and trust me, you don’t want to mess with that. And that is literally all you need to do to impress girls, they’re not going to know how to waltz.”

“Maybe they do.”

“They won’t.”

“But what if they do.”

“They’re not-“

“ _But_ what if they do?”

Steve groaned, pinching his nose, “I hate all of you.”

He got a chorus of four voices, “No, you don’t.”

 

“Left.”

The sun was warm against Steve’s face as he lifted his head to the heavens before dropping it into his hands, praying to whatever god may be up there for patience he did not have, “No, dipshits, not all you take a step to the your left. Only the lead.”

“That’s me, Dustin!” Lucas snapped, pulling out of hold with Dustin by pushing him. “You’re supposed to follow me.”

“No, I’m the lead, you’re the girl.”

“Why would I want to be the girl?”

“Why would _any_ of us want to be the girl?” Mike asked sarcastically. “We’re going to be dancing with girls, we need to learn the guy parts.”

“You will,” Steve said flatly, dropped down to sit on the front step, “Eventually.”

“It’s been like an hour.”

“Well none of you could keep a proper hold,” He point out sarcastically. “If I’m teaching you, I’m doing it right, dipshits. You’re not listening.”

“Then show us,” Mike insisted. “You’re just – just standing there like a drill sergeant.”

Steve sighed, looking into the depths of his empty coffee mug and deciding if he had the energy for this. He sighed louder and stood up, “You shits better pay attention. Dustin get over here.”

Steve walked to the middle of the yard as the boys sat down with the exception of Dustin. Steve stood in front of him, “Alright, ask me to dance with you.”

“I’m going to dance with you?”

“Not if you don’t ask me. C’mon.”

“Will you dance with-“

“Not like that, kid,” Steve rolled his eyes. “Be cooler about it, act like it’s their honor to dance with you, alright. Confidence, kid. Do it again.”

“Uh…”

“Offer me your hand,” Steve prompted him and then when Dustin did so, “And now ask me to dance.”

“Uh, shall we dance?” Dustin offered hesitantly.

Steve took his hand, “Good. Left hand goes in my right and your right hand on my shoulder. Keep your elbow at shoulder height.”

Steve adjusted Dustin’s stance, propping his elbow higher before turning to the others, “Why isn’t one of you shits writing this down, you clearly can’t remember it.”

He got grumbled at but they all pulled out notebooks from their backpacks as Steve prompted Dustin again, “Okay, you’re leading so you have to guide me backwards. Use your left foot and step forward, keep your knees bent – no, not like your fucking umpire, Dustin, just a little.”

They moved and Steve gave instructions in between counts. Steve’s knees were bend to an almost uncomfortable degree because middle school girls were not as tall as he was. Once it was pointed out, Dustin was a nagging dick about practicing being as authentic as possible but eventually, Dustin was actually leading Steve instead of being dragged forward by him.

Steve thought it was actually going well. Lucas got the steps down almost immediately and Will was pretty good even if Steve thought he lacked some confidence, but Mike.

“What is so hard about this?”

“Nothing! I did it.”

“No, you didn’t,” Steve shot back. “What you did was step on my shoe and scuffed it.”

“Whatever.”

“Yeah, I’m sure El is going to love your fucking attitude,” Steve muttered, adjusting Mike’s elbow for the nth time. “You’re standing too close to me and you’re leading with your right foot, that isn’t how you waltz.”

“Who cares?”

“You! Apparently, you care. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

Mike rolled his eyes and muttered under his breath something that sounded suspiciously like ‘no wonder Nancy dumped you’ but Steve ignored it. He sighed, “Alright, on the count of three move your _left_ foot forward.”

“Alright, that wasn’t hard,” Steve muttered, keeping up the count as Mike stepped forward and he stepped back. He kept his encouraging words low and genuine, “This is good…great, you’re doing, Mike…don’t forget about your – fuck.”

Steve didn’t so much break the hold as he fell out of it. Something hard jammed into his calf as he stepped down on an uneven surface, and then he fell, “Fuck, what the – is this your bike?”

Mike looked down at Steve sprawled over in the snow and the grass and nodded, “I get it now, Dustin was right.”

“Right about what?”

“You’re accident-prone,” Dustin said, jogging over to him. He offered Steve a hand that was shrugged off as the older teen got to his feet.

Steve wiped snow off his jacket before running his hand through his hair, “It’s not an accident if someone leads me straight into their fucking bike.”

“I couldn’t see over your shoulder,” Mike shrugged. “Bad luck then?”

“Yeah, bad luck,” Steve agreed. “And I want those notes for my physics test.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few things:  
> (1) It is very hard to find a place to write over the holidays in a family of seven but I'm back at school now and it should be easier.  
> (2) I don't actually know how to waltz so everything Steve is saying in the chapter basically came from wikihow.  
> (3) Thanks to everybody reading!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FEW THINGS:   
> (1) My minor is taking up way more time than I anticipated so, sorry for the literal month that has passed since I've updated this.   
> (2) This chapter is about twelve hundred words longer than the last chapter so hopefully that makes up for a bit of the wait

“You’re late.”

The car rocked slightly as the door was wretched open and then slammed shut with the weight of a middle school body falling into the passenger seat. The only thing stopping Steve from rolling his eyes was the thought that they might actually freeze in that position if he did.

It should a crime for temperatures to drop so suddenly.

Steve was halfway convinced that Hawkins’ weather was sentient in general and hated his guts in particular.

“ _Again_ ,” Dustin stated, fixing Steve with a look after he tossed his backpack into the back. “This is the second time this week, Steve.”

“Your point?”

“It’s _Tuesday_.”

Steve weighed the pros and cons of the risk in rolling his eyes and then did so anyways. He let the annoyance melt the ice on his tongue, “You’re lucky that I’m picking your ass up at all.”

“What is that bullshit anyways, I’m late?” He continued as he put the car in reverse and pulled out of the Henderson’s driveway. “So, what? It’s my car and you could be walking for all I care, ass – hey, what do you think you’re doing? Stop – that.”

“Shouldn’t your eyes be on the road, _Steve_?” Dustin asked without missing a beat. It was as if he had those words sitting on the edge of his tongue, just waiting to be used. It was like he had predicted this very conversation playing out and that somehow annoyed Steve more.

The twerp didn’t even spar him a look as he continued to try and fail to shove a slick yellow and black rectangular _thing_ into Steve’s overcrowded glove compartment with dire concentration.

Dustin grabbed a handful of old receipts and tossed them into the backseat, “Jesus, Steve, don’t you ever clean this thing out?”

Steve responded with an unimpressed and tired look before slamming on his breaks at a stop sign. Dustin fell forward into the dashboard with the unexpected stop, barely managing to put his hands up so not to catch it with his face, “Shit, Harrington! What the hell is your problem?”

“Put your seatbelt on, dipshit, that’s my problem,” He stated, and didn’t start driving again until Dustin was finished with his dramatic little show of clicking the belt into place. “I have to tell you that every time I pick you up.”

“I know.”

“It’s fucking annoying, you know that?” He muttered. “And you’re picking all that shit up that you threw into my backseat.”

“It’s _your_ stuff.”

“What are – what are you trying to leave in my car?” Steve asked as Dustin picked the case up from where it had dropped to the floor in his fall. “What is that, Soap? Are you seriously putting soap in my car?”

“Why would I leave soap in your car?”

“I don’t know, maybe because half your shit is already in here,” He said sarcastically, gesturing to the forgotten coat, hat, textbook, stack of X-Men comics in his backseat. “You’ve practically moved in so why would I _ever_ think that you’d leave something in my car?”

“For the record, that’s Lucas’ coat.”

“For the record, I can’t stand you.”

“For the record, that’s a huge lie.”

“It looks like a bar of soap, man,” Steve said undeterred when Dustin went back to trying to shove the thing into his glove compartment. “ _Is_ it a bar of soap? I swear to god, Dustin-“

“Explain the logic of me putting a bar of soap in your glove compartment, Steve, explain that to me,” Dustin asked of him and then sighed, “It’s not – okay? I’m not an idiot.”

“That’s debatable.”

“A four-syllable word, nice. I’m almost impressed.”

“ _What_ is it, Dustin?”

“It’s nothing, alright? It’s cool.” Dustin waved him off, holding the case in the crook of his arm while he pulled three pairs of Ray-Ban sunglasses from the compartment. “Do you really need all of these?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t even have a map in here or extra batteries but you _need_ three pair of lame ass sunglasses?”

“Watch your language, smartass,” He grumbled and then when he pulled to a stop at a red light, made a grab for the case. He pried it from where it was lodged, shoving Dustin’s hand away from him,” Stop fighting – just – let me have-“

He frowned when he got the item and observed it, “Is this a first aid kit?”

“Maybe.”

Steve’s frown deepened, “It _is_ a first aid kit. Why?”

“It’s cool, right?” Dustin grinned but it was a fleeting smile. The upturn of his lips dove south quickly, falling fast into something severe and far too serious for a kid this young, and much, _much_ too serious for a shithead like Dustin.

Steve felt an uncomfortable ache beneath his sternum when Dustin added, “My mom picked it up from the drug store yesterday, it’s Star Wars themed so it’s cool, trust me. And you – you need one anyways.”

“I don’t – No, I don’t. Why would I need a first aid kit?”

“For all the same reason that you need a bat with nails in your truck and always carry a lighter on you, you need it,” Dustin said, rolling his eyes. He threw his hands up dramatically as his voice pitched to a ridiculous and offended degree, “What if a demo-dog bites me? What are you going to do then, Steve? Save me with your sunglasses? Pretty freaking unlikely, no, you’re going to let me bleed out because you got no bandages.”

That ache in Steve’s chest twisted and turned like a hot metal blade, and he swallowed the hurt in a frown. He didn’t put up a fight when Dustin snatched the case back from him and shoved it into the glove compartment with force and finality, closing it with a satisfied slam.

He turned back to Steve with incredulous sarcasm in his voice as he joked, “Just nice. Nice, Harrington, some babysitter you are, letting me bleed out and all.”

Steve turned back to the road and drove when the light turned green. He forced his words out lighter than the ball of anxiety settled in his chest, “I don’t think four Star Wars themed band-aids are going to help anyone, Dustin. Dem – Demo-dog or not.”

“I’ll get more stuff from the nurse’s office at school,” He said, frowning at the compartment door like he was taking stock of all that was in the small case. He turned his frown to Steve with a thoughtful look, “A _lot_ more stuff, you’ll need it.”

“For you.”

“Yeah, Steve,” He said plainly, “Because I’m the one with the broken face.”

 

Four Star Wars band-aids were never going to fix anything.

Steve lost track of the conversation that bounced and jumped around the confines of his car, that jumbled with his own thoughts in knots so tight that he was never going to get them untangled. Everything drifted at uneven speeds, from the mention of school and the first aid classes offered at the community center a town over, to the discussion of AV club and if Jackie Chan movies were a viable way of learning self-defense, to questions about sleep that everybody lied about.

Everything settled heatedly into a circled debate about arcade games and which were the best, and Steve got lost in his head. It was getting easier to do so.

He barely remembered parking the car before he was standing on mud-stiff carpet, lost in the overlapping voices of too many kids and loud repetitive music in too small a place, games won and games lost.

When the kid slipped away one by one, he had hardly noticed.

Steve startled at a pinch to his hand and pulled his arm away, “What the fuck?”

“Dude, there are children here,” Dustin pointed out. When all Steve replied with was a glare, he asked, “Are you going to play some games or just stand there like some grade-A weirdo?”

Steve’s eyes narrowed even farther into slits and Dustin rolled his eyes, “Fine, can I have your quarters then?”

“Don’t you have your own?”

“I forgot them at home.”

“Liar.”

Dustin held at his hand expectantly, “I’m serious.”

“Sure, you are,” He muttered back, rolling his eyes but handing over cash to have converted. “You better fucking beat Max’s score then.”

“I will.”

Even with the increase in kids generated by the geeky buzz around the new game brought in, there wasn’t all that much difficulty in keeping track of the kids because they often traveled as a pack. There was the occasional break off – Will and Mike to Donkey Kong, Max and Lucas at Galaga, Max and Dustin hogging Dig Dug for over an hour. Sometimes Dustin broke off from the ground to check in with Steve for no other reason than to try to convince to play a game.

“No, thanks.”

“You’re just going to stand there?” Dustin asked. “Like – like some kind of lame parent watching their kid?”

“No, I’m going to stand here looking _awesome_ like I’m your goddamn babysitter, go play your games.”

“You’re not my babysitter, we’re hanging out,” He told him, sounding put out. “No one is even paying you to – just whatever. You don’t even – what about air hockey? Cool people play air hockey.”

“Maybe later.

“Okay,” Dusting agreed, and then a beat later, “It’s later now, let’s go play air hockey.”

Steve sent him a tired look before shoving him away, “I said later, go beat Max’s high school or fail trying. I’m going out to smoke.”

“Mr. Clarke said that smoking is a bad habit.”

“It is, never do it.”

Steve technically didn’t smoke anymore.

And Steve technically was sleeping at night, and not losing his hair to anxiety, and technically he was over the Mind Flayer and the Upside Down, and Nancy breaking up with him. Steve was a lot of technicallys.

Steve was a liar.

More and more with each day, he was becoming a liar. With each day, he was finding more to lie about, finding an ease to the deception. It was like a second nature now, like a second layer of skin.

He waved to guys on the basketball team because King Steve would do that then he ducked into the alley behind the arcade before they could talk to him because that was what Steve does. He hides, from everyone.

He liked the cold more than he liked the smoke invading his lungs, he liked the icy chill of the outside air and the muted noise of the arcade on the other side of the brick wall. He liked the act of smoking mostly, of holding the cigarette between his fingers or lips like musicians and actors in magazines. He liked the way it burnt away into nothing, the way he could think when the smoke burnt the back of his throat.

He didn’t really need to be here, he thought bitterly, not really.

He presence made the same difference as his absence, which was none.

Dustin hadn’t asked him to come and the party didn’t ask him for a ride after school, he’d just ushered them into his car with halfhearted complaints because – it was a big and empty house that Steve had to return to. The emptiness of it all was filling him and he was…afraid of what would happen if it hollowed him out completely.

He preferred the noise and the arguing, and all the stupid middle school geeky drama. He scuffed the ground with his shoe and wondered why exactly the inside of the arcade felt like it was suffocating him then.

Steve let the cigarette fall from between his fingers and snuffed it out with his shoe before lighting another one. He took a drag as he leaned against the brick, letting the smoke and the taste slide down the back of his throat before exhaling.

It made him feel a little calmer, a little normal.

Nancy had told him that he should quit.

He had agreed, for her, for basketball.

Technically, he had.

Technically, he hadn’t.

He hadn’t realized the distance grow long between his blinks, or the time that passed since he last he opened his eyes. He did not hear the footsteps over the noise of his thoughts until there was an uncomfortable weight on his shoulder. He startled violently and struck out first, sending his elbow back with force into something hard and heard a surprise ‘oof.’

His eyes had snapped open but before he could register that he wasn’t in the Upside Down, there was a hand on his shoulder and his wrist, twisting his arm behind his back. He was shoved forward, hissing when his sore nose was slammed against the brick siding.

“I – I’m starting to think I’m being stalked,” Steve said as plainly as he could with his heart hammering in his chest. He did not see his attacker and the pain in his arm only got worse when he tried to wiggle out of the hold.

It was spies, his mind told him venomously.

It _wasn’t_ spies.

 _It was_.

Microphones in the caps of pens and in the brooches of flirty girls’ jackets, microscopic trackers in foods and in cars – he hadn’t even checked for bugs in his car that morning because he’d been running late. Shit, _shit_ , they were listening and they heard him talking about the creatures of a nightmare world and they were –

The voice was a gruff and low growl, and yet mocking all the same, “Aren’t you a little too cool for the arcade, Harrington?”

Steve could have rolled his eyes, “Hargrove? Let go.”

Billy hiked his arm up his back higher and pressed his large hand against the back of Steve’s head so the brick grounded into his still-healing wounds. Steve bit his lip to keep from making a sound, biting hard enough that he could taste blood as he spat out, “Aren’t you _not_ cool enough for arcades?”

It was a weak and stupid taunt, and Billy let him know that with a taunt in his own voice as his hand fisted in Steve’s hair, “Arcades aren’t cool, Harrington.”

“Exactly,” He grounded through his teeth. “So – leave.”

Billy only laughed and applied more pressure onto Steve’s arm, grinding the bones in his wrist together, “Nah, I don’t think so.”

He can feel Billy’s breath warm on his neck when he added with a wince in his voice, “You did hit me first, Harrington. Here, I was tryin’ to be friendly.”

 _He’s going to break my arm_ , Steve thought as the pain brought tears to the corner of his eyes and Billy chuckled lowly. His mind raced like running through Jell-O trying to come up with a viable explanation for a broken limb as he tried to keep his voice free of the pain, “You’re – you’re losing your touch.”

He really didn’t know why exactly he was egging Billy on but it got a hard shove into the wall he was already pressed flat again. It knocked the breath out of him and reminded him that his ribs were not completely healed yet.

Steve couldn’t stop the whimper that escaped his mouth when Billy twisted his arm almost violently, feeling the strain and the pull all the way up his shoulder and neck. Billy laughed.

Billy only ever sounded alive when he was causing pain, Steve noted absentmindedly, feeling the heat of smoked breath against his ear. His condescending words choked in his mouth with a hiss when Steve fumbled with the burnt end of his cigarette still in his free hand. He blindly pressed it against the flesh of Billy’s forearm, causing him to let go.

Before Steve could feel anything other than cold, Billy grabbed his shoulder and turned him around. He pressed his big hand against Steve’s chest and shoved him back into the wall, grinning manically in his face, “It’s that damn death wish again.”

“If you’re going to kill me, save the monologue.”

Billy laughed again, observing the light burn on his arm, “You’re just asking for it now, aren’t ya, Harrington? You _want_ me to hit you.”

Steve wanted a nap, wanted to feel full, and warm, and anything other than exhausted. He wanted to hurt in better ways. _Yeah,_ he wanted to be hit, to fight back and lose.

He breathed out fogged breath, “The only way you could really hurt me is with your absence. Wanna give that a try? I’ll be devastated, promise.”

Billy clicked his tongue against his teeth and smiled like a shark, nearly sneered when he asked in a mock, “What’s a pretty boy like you doin’ in an alley? It’s fucking Hawkins, people will talk.”

“About what?” He asked, shoving Billy back a step with a hand pressed to his open shirt but Steve didn’t move from his spot against the wall. “You’re in this alley, too. What are they going to say about that?”

Billy chuckled in a way that voided all humor from the air and stuck a cigarette because his teeth, he gestured for Steve to give him a light and for some reason, Steve handed over his lighter.

He watched as Billy lit his cigarette and then as he blew smoke straight into his face before saying, “I keep forgetting, Harrington, you’re the funny man.”

“Maybe you really were dropped too often as a child,” Steve replied, shaking a cig out of his pack for no other reason than that Billy was smoking. He held out his hand for his lighter and Billy responded by lighting the cigarette for him and pocketing the zippo. Steve just barely didn’t roll his eyes when he gestured to Billy’s head, “The cause of your forgetfulness, that is.”

“Maybe you’re just not worth remembering, Harrington.”

“Then forget I’ve ever existed and leave me alone.”

Billy tilted his head and frowned around his cigarette, “And lose these pleasant little talks and all of your…jokes.”

“I think you’ll live,” Steve said sarcastically. “Why are you even – what are you doing here? I drove Max.”

“I’m taking the little bitch home,” He said, checking his watch, “In about ten minutes.”

“Don’t – don’t call her that, she’s just a kid.”

“Right, you’re the only bitch around here.”

“Ha,” Steve said deadpanned, “Don’t you have some puppies to kick or something?”

“Why do you think I’m here?” He grinned, blowing smoke in Steve’s face again.

Steve just glared and sighed, “Consider this puppy kicked, just leave.”

“That what you want?”

“Yeah, man.”

Billy tilted his head back and forth in a way that Steve supposed was supposed to look thoughtful but instead just looked like he had water stuck in his ears, “Sure, just one thing.”

Steve couldn’t prepare himself when Billy struck out hard, catching Steve in the ribs with the heel of his hand. He fisted his hand back into Steve’s hair and pulled up hard so that he was forced to look up from where he’d doubled over. Billy smiled something sinister and amused, and tapped his calloused fingertips against the cut on Steve’s forehead.

It hurt and he took joy in seeing Steve flinch as he pulled his fingers away, sticky and red. He dragged his fingers down the slope of Steve’s nose almost gently before jabbing his thumb against the tender flesh, “Looks like you’re bleeding, Stevie-Boy.”

Steve didn’t fight the motion when Billy’s amusement turned to a sneer and he shoved him hard enough into the wall behind him that he couldn’t breathe. He could hear himself wheeze as Billy chuckled to himself, grabbing Steve’s collar and throwing him forward.

He laughed at Steve’s stumble, and the way his hands scrapped against the concrete when he tripped over Billy’s extended foot. Steve was still on the ground when Billy bent down next to him, he ran his fingers almost carefully through Steve’s hair before shoving his head down, “Consider this puppy kicked, Harrington.”

Steve waited until Billy got up and disappeared around the corner before pulling himself off the ground. He slumped against the wall, feeling drained and tired, and a heat just behind his eyes as he observed the burning scraps on his hands that were seeping blood. He sighed, touching his forehead where he could feel the sluggish trail of blood.

 _“Fuck,”_ He muttered as his red fingers before straightening his shoulders. He didn’t look at anyone on the way to his car, dropping into the seat and fumbling for the stupid Star Wars themed first-aid kit.

He nearly jumped a foot in the air at a sudden knock at the window, knuckles tapping against the glass three times before a head ducked down into the side of Steve’s vision. He shot a quick look before his eyes shifted forward and then down to his lap, and he cursed beneath his breath.

He sighed and forced his mouth to tilt into a smile as he ruffled his hair so that it fell in into his face, covering the seeping open cut on his forehead. He rolled the window down, “Uh hey, Jonathan.”

“Hey man,” He said carefully, crouching down by the window so they were eye to eye. He tapped his fingers against the metal nervously and then asked, “I saw you from my car. You looked pretty upset, are you okay?”

“Stalking, again?” He joked but nodded, clasping his hands around the case in his lap so hard that it hurt. He looked ahead instead of at Jonathan and nodded again, “Yes, yeah, I’m – great, good. Will’s in the arcade.”

“I know, I just talked to him,” He said. Steve could almost breathe when Jonathan disappeared from the window until his passenger door was pulled open, “He said that they’d all be out soon.”

Jonathan sat down and closed the door so carefully that Steve was sure that it wasn’t actually shut. He didn’t say anything, just sat there with his eyes drilling into the side of Steve’s face, “You’re bleeding.”

“What?” He said, startled but then shook his head. Steve pulled together his act and his persona, and he smiled mindlessly of his damaged split lip because this was something he could do. He’d spent his life under the weight of one scrutiny or another, it hardly weighed on him anymore.

He could be King Steve, he could be Steve. He could lie through his teeth and his spilt lip because people never paid enough attention to know the difference.

Steve held up his hands and the stupid first-aid kit, “Caught me, I’m a klutz. Fucked up my hands.”

Jonathan whistled lowly and winced at the scrapped skin, “That looks like it hurts.”

“Yeah, I left the top layer on the asphalt,” He said offhandedly even as Jonathan easily slipped blood-slick first-aid kit from his hand and sat it down in the cupholder. He held out one of his own hands, the scar across the palm just like the one on Nancy’s was held up and inviting as he gestured for Steve to let him see his hand. “I’m patching them up, it’s no problem.”

Jonathan didn’t reach out and take Steve’s hand by force or impatience, just waited for him to concede. It somehow made Steve feel guilty that he was being so patient with him for something as stupid as cut hands so he placed one of his in the open palm, “It’s really nothing.”

“Maybe not but we should clean them up so you don’t get an infection,” he said casually, opening the small case to see what’s inside of it. He frowned at the two alcohol wipes, four band-aids, and the small strip of gauze, but said nothing about it. “Is this the only damage done?”

Steve shrugged but nodded, “Yeah.”

“Okay,” He nodded back, ripping open one of the alcohol wipes, “It’s just that you have blood on your nose.”

“…Must have touched my face with my hands,” He said slowly so not to hiss when Jonathan wiped away all the blood from his hand with the wipe. He handed him the one wipe to clean his face, giving Steve an excuse to adjust his hair over the reopened cut on his forehead.

He pulled his hand away like it burnt when the backdoor was pulled open and the kids piled into it. He wiped the blood off his nose quickly, but it didn’t mean anything when Dustin was so damn perspective, “What happened?’”

“Nothing.”

“Yeah, that looks like a big lot of nothing,” He said sarcastically, sending Steve a look and then tilting his head to the window where Billy’s car was peeling out of the parking lot as if asking.

Steve rolled his eyes as Jonathan took his hands back and applied the band-aids and gauze as effectively as he could, “The sidewalk did it.”

“This is what we were saying about you being accident-prone, tripping over the sidewalk like a dork.”

“It wasn’t an accident,” Steve said indignantly, taking his hands back and curling them around the steering wheel. “I was – I _was_ tripped, not by the sidewalk. _Someone_ tripped me.”

Was it a ghost?”

The blood was seeping from under the band-aids already, loosening the adhesive and slicking the steering wheel with it. Steve swore he could feel the blood siding down his face even as the kids rolled their eyes, “It wasn’t a fucking ghost.”

“Sure, Steve.”

“It was probably Wheeler,” Steve accused, “That shit has never liked me.”

“I’m literally right here.”

“I don’t care,” He muttered darkly, “Your attitude takes up so much fucking space that I tripped over it.”

“Hilarious, Steve.”

“Is that blood?” Someone asked and Dustin jabbed his finger through Steve’s hair and into an open wound.

He hissed, pulling away, “Ow, fuck!”

“Ew, you’re bleeding,” Dustin said, wiping his fingers on Steve’s jacket like an asshole, “Jonathan-“

“There’s nothing else in here.”

“It’s fine, guys, I-“

“Go to my house,” Dusting suggestion over top of the conversation that broke out regarding the bloody wound. He hit Steve in the shoulder, “My mom’s a nurse, she can fix your hands.”

“Dustin-“

“You have to take me home anyways, she doesn’t care if you’re a dork that trips over his own feet,” He said and then added, “Friends don’t let friends die of septicemia because of cuts hands.”

Steve gritted his teeth and sighed because four Star Wars band-aids were never going to fix a goddamn thing, “…Fine.”


	6. Chapter 6

It was getting harder to see the silver lining from gray clouds but Steve was making the effort. He was really, really trying.

And like most things, he thought bitterly, it was piss poor.

Pathetic. Useless. A waste of goddamn time fighting it.

It was starting to feel more and more like clouds were invading every aspect of _everything_. With each day that passed, it felt that he was becoming less human and more vapors and gas, more air than Steve.

There were storm clouds rumbled in his chest, rain and water pouring and crashing beneath his lungs. It was flooding him, drowning out his mind and the space behind his eyes.

He was losing the fight to swim, he could feel it set heavy like lead in every muscle movement. He was losing his will, and tenacity, and desire to keep his head above the water, to keep his eyes to the sky to find those silver linings.

He was trying.

Like all things, he was trying so damn hard.

He considered,

Silver lining: Once he agreed to go to be checked out by Dustin’s mother, it was easy to get everybody off his case and even easier to get Jonathan out of his car.

Silver lining: Jonathan insisted that he would drive everybody else home if he left immediately for the Henderson household which meant that he would save on gas, and thus save on money.

Silver lining: He tripped over a broken piece of sidewalk when getting out of his car which he liked to think sold his story that he was nothing more than just a little clumsy better.

He sighed and breathed in Hawkins’ cold air until it felt like winter froze over his chest. He let his eyes slid close and his head fall forward, and he let Dustin’s voice echo over his mind, “You’re not going to bother my mom, Steve. It’s literally her job to take care of things like this.”

And the silver lining dimmed and faded into gray clouds again.

Gray: He didn’t want to be here.

“I don’t _want_ to be here, Dustin,” Steve stated plainly, standing in the Henderson’s driveway. “I _really_ don’t want to be here.”

Gray: He didn’t want help.

“I’ll leave,” Steve told him on the front porch, his bleeding hands curled crossed into his arm pits. “I don’t need help. It’s fucking nothing, kid.”

Gray: He didn’t know how to get blood out of denim.

“It’s just a little blood, Dustin. It’s nothing.

Gray: He didn’t want to bother Mrs. Henderson.

“If you fucking bother your mother about – about this _nothing_ than your ass is grass.”

Gray: He was in no way threatening, especially not to the kind of kid that kept a monster from a hell dimension in his room as a pet. Threats really didn’t mean much after what they’d seen, not ones coming from Steve.

“I’ll tell your mom about the goddamn cat, I swear to fucking god.”

Gray: The unwanted and unwarranted concern in Dustin’s big brown eyes wavered into his voice.

“I just want to help you, Steve.”

“I don’t need help. I know how to take care of myself.”

“But you don’t have to.”

Gray: Steve’s big fucking mouth

“Just – get me some Band-Aids or something and – be quiet,” Steve sighed, standing at the sink in the kitchen and trying not to wince as he pulled matted blood-sticky hair away from the cut on his forehead. “We’re not interrupting Wheel of Fortune for something I can handle on my own, and I don’t need your mom’s coddling.”

“But that’s the best part!”

“Quiet.”

“But that’s the best part of getting hurt, Steve,” Dustin said in a stage whisper as he climbed up onto the counter next to the sink. He dug through the first aid kit for bandages and disinfectant wipes, telling Steve’s tired expression, “Maybe that’d make you feel better, being coddled.”

“It wouldn’t.”

“How do you know, ever try it?”

“Dustin,” He sighed. “Be quiet.”

Dustin sighed again and matched Steve’s tired face but he changed the topic as he tore the wrapper off a disinfectant wipe, “How’d you reopen your forehead again anyways?”

Gray: Steve’s inability to just shut the fuck up.

“I don’t know,” He sighed, “Must have hit my head when I fell or something.”

Dustin paused and then, “…STEVE!”

“SHHH!”

“YOU JUST – You just have a _concussion!_ Oh my god, you’re such a dumbass,” Dustin swore, pinching the bridge of his nose. He stared at Steve for half a second before opening his mouth with a sharp intake of breath, “MOM, St-“

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Steve hissed at him, tightening his hand around the dish towel that he was dirtying with the blood in his hair. He flapped the towel in his face, “I told you that we’re not telling your mom about-“

“MOM, Steve’s getting blood on your nice dish towels!” He shouted, drowning out Steve’s threat before fixing him with an innocent but pointed look. “That was not about your hands or your head, it was about the dish towels. They are her favorites, Steve, she loves them.”

“…I hate you so much.”

“You can hate me all you want but at least we’ll know that you’re not like, bleeding in your brain from an untreated concussion.”

“I’m not even-“

“Hi, Mom.”

Steve doesn’t even understand why the emotions that flood him when he turned to her standing in the doorway were guilt and a shame so deep it was upside down.

“Hi, Mrs. Henderson.”

Claudia Henderson was always something.

She was always so kind and nice every time he’d ever interacted with her but she was a little too… much for Steve. She was too loud, and concerned, and _there_ in all the ways that Steve’s mother wasn’t.

He didn’t know what to do with it. He didn’t know what to do with her or with the intensity of her gaze when Dustin beckoned her over to look at the broken skin on his hands.

He didn’t know what to do with her simple _tsk_ as she fussed him into a chair. He never knew what to do when she fretted over his thinness and the darkening circles beneath his eyes. He didn’t know what to do with so much attention.

It was a whirlwind and honestly exhausting to be around.

“Steve hurt his hands at the arcade, Mom,” Dustin reported to her. “And he said that he hit his head, he had a concussion not too long ago. Remember, I told you about it?”

“I remember, honey. Can I see your hands, Steve?”

There was a certain energy to her, a chaotic mania and charm that Steve could see so plainly in Dustin sometimes. It made him kind of want to laugh.

“You’re very nice,” He blurted out suddenly when she carefully removed the Star Wars Band-Aids from his hands. His voice sounded strangled and wrong to him, sounded overemotional and grateful, and jarringly close to tears for no reason at all. “Thank you for – this.”

Her eyes shifted minutely from his damaged hands to his bruised face and he knew the quiet horror that her mind jumped to so readily when she sent Dustin out of the room to get a cream from the bathroom. It was not as if people didn’t talk of the emptiness that often laid behind The Harrington’s front door.

The jump from neglect to abuse was such an easy one to make thought Steve felt that he experienced neither.

Steve felt compelled to compensate for parents as shadowy as the invisible spies in his mind. He felt compelled for their reputation and for the words Mrs. Henderson would undoubtedly gossip through the phone later. Mostly, he felt compelled for his own reputation, whatever may remain of it.

He shifted away from her touch unwillingly, pulling his hands from her and folding them down into his lap. He clenched them together before gesturing to his mangled face. He lied, lamely, “Basketball accident.”

He could hear her disbelief when she asked, “Really?”

“Well, I say accident,” He backtracked, “It’s…not really the right word for it.”

“Is it not?” She asked patiently and he felt like vomiting his life story all over the table. How did Dustin deal with this day in and day out?

“There’s, uh, this guy on the team – the _other_ team, in a game,” Steve lied, rambling with no direction to go. He dug his nails into the cuts on his hands and tried to get his brain to function, not ready to admit to himself or to her what exactly his relationship was with Billy Hargrove. “Got angry about – _something_ , I guess. And…he jumped me, after a game.”

He added with more surety and conviction because it was at least the truth, “Chief Hopper knows all about it.”

“Oh,” She said. He couldn’t decipher what she meant by it before she had continued on, “That’s good that he knows, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it’s great.”

He smiled and squeezed his hands so tight together that he could felt his fingernails reopening what had started to clot. It shot pain into his eyes and he blinked hard.

Claudia looked sad, “Stevie.”

He wanted to roll his eyes.

God, he hated that stupid fucking nickname even if he kind of liked the way she dotted on it. Instead of rolling his eyes, he pressed his lips together into a thin line and frowned down at the time. He started when her rough hand rested gently on his shoulder, “I think I have something better than some Band-Aids from this ol’ first aid kit.”

That almost left him dumbfounded, “What?”

She sighed at the blood on the sleeve of his denim jacket and rubbed at the fabric before telling him, “I don’t want you to get an infection, Stevie. Dustin should be back soon with that cream.”

He didn’t know why he unfolded his hands onto the table, why he let her slather an antibiotic ointment on his hands and wrap them in tight bandages, or why he let her clean the blood from his forehead. He didn’t know why he didn’t protest her shining a light into his eyes, why he stopped insisting that he was fine or why he let her take his jacket to wash. And he really didn’t know how he ended up sitting on the couch next to Dustin watching Jeopardy.

“I told you that she’d make you feel better.”

“You can walk to school, asshole.”

Dustin snorted, “Yeah, right. My little ears would get cold, do you want me to have cold ears? You’re not that cruel.”

“Trust me, I am. Walk.”

“Rude,” Dustin said, not missing the half smile that wavered onto Steve’s face. “You do feel a _little_ better, right? Mom makes people feel better for a living.”

“No, I don’t,” Steve told him, “Now, I’m sitting on your couch without a jacket. I’m cold.”

“Here,” He replied easily, pulling the quilt off the back of the couch and tossing it at him. “Now you’re warm. You can take a nap or something until your jacket is dry.”

“No thanks.”

“But you’re tired.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You look tired.”

“Well, I’m not,” Steve replied tersely, wrapping the blanket around his shoulders. “Asshole.”

Dustin rolled his eyes, tilting his head back to see if he could hear his mom in the kitchen before looking back at Steve, “Do you have trouble sleeping?”

“The only trouble I have is with assholes that don’t keep their word.”

“You can be mad at me all you want but the party has mutually agreed to not let each other die in our sleep from completely preventable head injuries. Sorry, you should have read the fine print.”

Steve didn’t say anything for a while. He was, in Dustin’s opinion, most definitely pouting as he worked his jaw out of a clench, “…After all the shit that we’ve been through, you think that’s what’s going to kill me?”

Dustin’s answer was blunt in its honesty and impact. Steve flinched at the simple “Yes.”

Steve fixed his eyes to the TV screen with unwavering determination. He bit his tongue against spilling insults and explanations, and stating so plainly that dying of something as trivial of this was welcomed in the face of what lurked beneath Hawkins.

He said nothing and Dustin continued, “You know, Nancy isn’t the only one reading things.”

“Didn’t know you could read, pipsqueak.”

“Shut up,” He shook his head, managing to get another smile out of Steve when he shoved him. It fell immediately when he said, “I’ve been reading about depression, Steve. I checked some books out of the library.”

“You think that you’re depressed?”

“No, I think you are,” He told him, hating the way that Steve only ever really looked awake when he was worrying about somebody else.

Steve snorted and shook his head, “What are you talking about, kid?”

“You’re… different, Steve. It’s noticeable and – you’re right, none of us are going to blame you for not being the same as you were before but…” He trailed off because Steve had shifted his entire body towards the TV, like doing so would ward off the conversation. “Maybe Nancy’s not right about PTSD but that doesn’t mean that everybody’s not worried about you. I’m worried about you.”

“Well, you can tell your Talk-Shit-About-Steve club that I’m not depressed nor do I have PTSD, I’m just tired,” He stated pointedly. “It’s my senior year, I have college essays and graduation, and shit like that to worry about. Not everything is about – that.”

Dustin’s voice was flat, “You look like you haven’t slept in months because of college essays.”

“How would you know what I was like before anyways? Wasn’t like we were friends, just from shit that you heard and that Mike told you? That’s all just bullshit.”

Steve rolled his eyes and chewed on his words before adding, “I’m not great, I’m – I’m in a funk. It feels like – there’s just this curse on me, right? Like everything that can go wrong at school is, that’s it. That’s all it is, got it?”

“Okay, Steve.”

“And why wouldn’t I be fine, anyways? We all saw the same shit and you’re doing fine.”

“I’m not always doing fine, actually,” Dustin told him bluntly. “And neither is anybody else. Not El, not Will, not-“

“Of course, they aren’t doing fine. They experienced – I don’t even know, but I’m fine. It’s the real world that’s stressing me out,” He said defensively and then visibly cooled down, running his hand through his hair. “Sorry, I – You’re not okay, is that what you’re saying?”

“No, Steve. What I’m saying is that it’s okay if you’re not, if I’m not. You’re a part of the party, we have each other’s back so… I want to help you when you’re not just – tell me how.”

He didn’t say anything for a while and then told him, “This is nice.”

“Yeah,” Dustin nodded, letting a smile pull up his lips. “Yeah, this is great.”

Steve didn’t stay the night despite being offered the couch multiple times. He shucked on his dryer-warm jean jacket and assured Mrs. Henderson, “I’ll be alright to get home, promise. I just want to sleep in my own bed.”

And that was where he woke up after actually managing to fall asleep, warm in his own soft sheets to the scent of ash on his tongue and a muttered curse in his ears. He eased into the first levels of consciousness and then crashed through the rest with a start as he sat up in bed. “Holy shit, Steve!”

The bat was kicked out of his reach before he could get a proper grip on it and his hands were grabbed and restrained, “Woah, hey. Calm down.”

“Dust – Dustin?” He squinted. “What the fuck? What are – why are you here?”

“This is sage,” Dustin said slowly. “We’re burning it. It will break the curse that’s on you.”

“Curse? What are you even – you burnt your hand,” He replied dumbly, shaking the sage from Dustin’s hand and onto the carpet. “Why are you – did you say _we_?”

Dustin’s eyes shifted over Steve’s shoulder and then he tilted his head in the direction. Steve followed the gaze to a guilty looking Lucas with the lighter from Steve’s discarded jean pocket, “Sorry.”

“Why are you here?” He asked, falling back into the bed. He mourned the loss of the possibility to sleep. “Dustin, talk. Now.”

“I read that if you burn sage than it gets rid of bad energy.”

“That’s not right!” Lucas spoke up. “It gets rid of ghost, Dustin.”

“Ghost _are_ bad energy, Lucas.”

“I don’t-“ Steve shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose hard enough that it brought tears just behind his eyes. “ _How_ did you get in here?”

“We make a copy of your keys.”

“What?”

Lucas rolled his eyes at Dustin’s failed joke, “We knocked on the door, your mom let us in.”

“My mom,” He repeated slowly. “My mom is here?”


	7. Chapter 7

There was no reason why he should feel like a stranger in his own home.

It was not a fraud that was fixing his hair in the bathroom mirror, not a con artist brushing his teeth until his gums bled. He was not imposter, spitting blood in the sink. He sighed, he moved on.

He took the stairs with heavy bones and muscles that were fighting against him. He was not a fake.

He had nothing to feel guilty for, nothing to gnaw at his insides until they were red and bleeding, infested and infected. He had no reason to feel like a phony.

He had lived in these long halls and felt trapped within these high walls for eighteen long years. It had been him that had inhabited these empty room through summer and fall, who’d taken their first steps one winter morning, had their first kiss on the first green day of spring. He had his first swim in the pool here, had tumbled down the front steps and got stitches here. He was scared here.

He’d slid down the stairs in sleeping bags and pillow cases despite nannies telling him not to, gave wear to the wallpaper and treaded the carpet. He’d banged his head on the underneath of tables playing make believe all alone and had caught more things on fire inside the toaster oven than anybody.

He’d got splinters from climbing the trees in the back yard, got lost in the woods and scrapped the skin from his knees running around the pool. He’d fell in love on the second story, made love, and got his ex-girlfriend’s best friend killed.

He’d had a childhood in this house, a life. His parents didn’t, they had a pitstop with nice sheets to stop at on their next trip.

He’d spent more time in this house than either of his parents, more time in Hawkins being exactly what was expected of a Harrington. He was not the imposter, not the con.

He was not a stranger. No here, not in this house.

He _wasn’t_ the pretender – there were no string on him that needed cut. He was just different now.

He wasn’t a phony but he _was._ Though to be fair, he always had been.

It was not a new revelation to himself that who he was had always been dependent to what was wanted of him. No one had wanted Steve to just be _Steve_ , it was no different if he was eight or eighteen. He’d accepted that just as readily as he accepted everything else, he molded and changed.

Steve Harrington – _King_ Steve of Hawkins High was a phony built up in cool hair and the right amount of bad reputation. He was cool clothes, and cigarettes, and parties by the pool, and he wasn’t somebody that Steve knew how being anymore. King Steve didn’t have a bat with nails. King Steve didn’t get his heart broken by Nancy Wheeler.

He wasn’t King Steve anymore, and he wasn’t their Steve either. He could be their Steve again. He didn’t know how.

He was not anybody that he was expected to be anymore. He was nobody that he should have been.  

He was not the Steve in pastel polos and sunglass that went to parties and won the girls, or had walked down those stairs bright and early one morning to help his parents carry their bags out to the Lincoln. They pretended that they didn’t notice the stark differences in their son and what had followed Lucas and Dustin down the stairs.

They acted as if they didn’t notice the split lip and the dark sleeplessness under his eyes, and ignored the bandages on his hand and his stupid lackluster hair that wasn’t lying right. They were playing happy normal family for their thirteen year old guests so he played along. They were family picture perfect and it was a paper-thin act but this was normal. Their normal.

 _‘Why are they here?’_ His mind whispered warm and hot in his ear as he took a stool at the kitchen bar, curling around his thoughts and seeping into his paranoia. It made itself at home at the base of his skull, breathing down his neck with sinister questioning and a cold touch of desperate neediness.

He barely acknowledged his father talking when he walked passed him, “Steven, help me set up this VCR I bought in Colorado. It’s the newest version.”

“We can help, Mr. Harrington. We’re good with electronics, we’re in AV Club.”

Steve’s mind whispered, _you know why they’re here._

Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.

 _Spies_.

“That’s ridiculous.”

Absolutely absurdly and stupidly ridiculous, he shook his head to shake the thought away but it hung on like a virus and it spread. It was just a crazy notion from not enough sleep and too many late night movies, and just really fucking dumb. All of this – all the goddamn science fiction fuckery that his life had become, the fucking nightmares, the paranoia – it was all as needlessly stupid as every football player in every cheesy teen comedy that Nancy had hated. It was just so –

“What was that, Stevie?”

“Huh?”

Steve blinked. Blinking felt the way that waking up inside of a dream felt, meaningless and unreal. It smelt like eggs and he’d been – “I didn’t realize I was talking.”

His body and mind were working in parallels.

He blinked again, dragging his eyes away from his father overseeing Dustin and Lucas connecting wires and reading instructions. He looked at his mom at the stove, uncooked eggs coagulating in a pan of oil. In a perfect world, she’d give up cooking.

His eyes went back to Dustin and Lucas – yes, they were still there, and alive, and safe _for now_. He kept forgetting that he shouldn’t let his mind run out of his mouth because he wasn’t alone – was never truly alone, _was always alone_. His parents were home.

Two full weeks early, without a call or a reason.

“Why?”

 _Spies_. _Reagan got to them, the government did._

_You knew something like this could happen – pretty pennies turned heads and Harringtons were greedy people. They could be bought, why didn’t you prepare for this? Why-_

“Stevie, sweetheart,” His mother said with a half-amused smile like she did when she thought she knew his thought process, and she always thought she knew his thought process. “What on Earth are you trying to ask? Use your words.”

_How could you betray me, sell me out to Reagan and Hawkins National Lab? What the fuck? How could you do that? I’m your son! Why would you-_

There were a hundred heavy questions weighing down his tongue and searing his mouth shut, trapping queries and inquiries to crowd down his throat and suffocate him. He was choking on the pressure of questions never asked and felt his teeth bend with the need to spit them somewhere.

He gave his mother a closed mouth smile and swallowed his words dry, “I thought you were going to New York for that conference.”

“We were.”

_Until the government bought your loyalties. Spies._

_Shut. Up._

“Oh?”

He’d fucked up somewhere. He’d let the kids get too loose throwing around words of interdimensional creatures, let himself get dragged into this and he hadn’t even checked the lights for microphones this morning. He didn’t check his car vents yesterday because – he got too reckless, and stupid, and the government turned his parents into spies.

He didn’t even consider that the Henderson house could have been bugged and they had – “What?”

“Steven, don’t ask a question and then not listen to the response. That’s rude.”

“I’m sorry, Ma.”

He wasn’t, _traitor_.

She does not even repeat what it was that he had missed, just started in on the typical run through.

She asked about the swim team and he told her that they were really good this year, he didn’t mention that he’d quit the team last year. She asked about school, his grades, basketball, and what of that nice Wheeler girl he was dating. He told her that everything was great, that he and Nancy broke up. It was never anything serious.

She didn’t want his heartache, his inadequacies or trauma. She wanted her well-adjusted picture perfect son.

She asked him about college applications and he told her that he was filling them out. He said nothing of the acceptance letter from Indiana State on his desk, of the bat beneath his bed.

His dad asked of the yellowish green that clung stubbornly to his face, asking if he had been fight – “You know what people will say, behaving like that. What kind of image is that, Steven?”

“And I’m okay, too,” Steve sighed because he didn’t even _ask_. He shrunk beneath the twin unamused looks that he got back and then shrugged. He told them that he was beat up, nose broken and ribs cracked, that it had hurt like hell and still did sometimes. He couldn’t deny hospital bills or the whispers they’d undoubtedly hear if they stuck around.

He told them that he didn’t know the guy, that it happened in the alley behind the theater and it had been his fault. “Stevie, what are you doing walking around in alleys at night like that. We bought you a car.”

He told them he was sorry.

He didn’t really know what he was supposed to be sorry for.

“Steve,” His father said pointedly, snapping him out his musings. He pointed with his eyes towards the living room where Lucas was slapping Dustin’s hands away from the instructions, as if to say, _‘Why?’_

Steve stopped himself from shrugging too much because they didn’t like that, “I, uh – started baby- mentoring. You know, like volunteer work, for my college applications.”

Dustin was a smart kind but he often threw the directions out with his caution, and Lucas got sick of him and sent him to bother Steve about – “The real reason we came here.”

Dustin was cute and he knew how to work a room well, playing Steve up to his parents like he was some big damn superhero big brother that saved him from the lonely depths of being an only child. His mother ate it up.

She insisted that he stay for breakfast, “You poor thing, you only had cereal? That’s not enough for a growing boy.”

“What’s up?” Steve asked lowly only after his mother went back to cooking and his father went to take a call. He gave Dustin the once over, making sure that other than the newly bandaged fingers that he was fine. “You adopt anymore animals?”

“I only did that once.”

“I know,” He said plainly, rubbing his eyes. “You came here for a reason apparently, other than to give me a heart attack.”

“We’ll talk about it when you’re not tired, and in a – less weird mood.”

 _“Dustin_.”

“The Snowball is next week, Steve,” He sighed. “It is six days away to be exact, that is six days to make sure everything is perfect.”

“I already taught you how to dance, what other way would you like me to embarrass myself?”

“I… just want to look cool,” He admitted. “Lucas is planning to ask Max to dance, and Mike has El. I – I _need_ to be cool, Steve!”

“The only thing you need to be cool is good hair and to act like you don’t care about anything,” He told him because well, _Billy_. “That’s it.”

“That’s it, _that’s it_ ,” Dustin said sarcastically, “Because that’s _soooo_ easy. Look at my hair, how is this cool?”

“Just style it, dude. You know what a brush is.”

“I don’t know how to style it and my mom tried once and I looked like I was electrocuted. That is not cool, Steve.”

“….Is this your long-winded way of asking me to do your hair.”

“Obviously, Steve. I know you’re tired but keep up,” He said and got an unimpressed look in return. “Also, can you come with me and Mom to pick out my suit?”

Steve rolled his eyes, “Fine. You owe me.”

“Deal, and you’ll drive me to the dance,” He added enthusiastically. Steve returned his enthusiasm with a tired look and Dustin nodded, “Took it too far, I see that. We’ll discuss that later.”

“Or never.”

“Or later,” Dustin insisted, giving Mrs. Harrington a cute grin when she looked over at them and waved. She sat in front of them greasy undercooked eggs before going into the living room, talking to her husband in a low voice. “Your mom seems nice.”

“She’s a child psychiatrist.”

“Oh,” Dustin said, his eyes shifting from Lucas glaring at instructions like he wasn’t eavesdropping over to Steve. He frowned.

He opened his mouth to speak but Steve spoke first, “Yeah, I know.”

“Dad’s a publicist or something, I don’t really know,” He added, jabbing the congealing mess on his plate with his fork to break the yoke. “Travels with Ma on her book tours and lectures, and she runs after him everywhere else he goes. Neither of them can see the irony in abandoning your child for half the year to tour the country with your child psychology books.”

Dustin didn’t really know what to do with that because he was thirteen and his parent might have been divorced but he saw his father every other weekend and on holidays. He didn’t have to answer though, saved by Steve smiling at his mom, “These are egg-tastic, Ma.”

His voice sounded as dead as his smile appeared and she didn’t even notice, “Thank you, Stevie.”

“It’s just Steve, Ma.”

“Steven,” His father sighed as he came into the room with Lucas, who rightfully turned down breakfast. “Don’t correct your mother.”

“It’s – it’s agency, right? Using the name that I prefer, seeing me as my own person with my own choices,” He stuttered. “Not just a product of yours.”

His mother smiled a big conference smile, “Of course, honey.”

She kissed the top of his head and petted down his hair like he hated, sighing at the sight of it, “I think you’re due for a haircut, Stevie.”

“This is how everybody’s hair looks, Ma.”

“It’s too big,” His father spoke. “You need to keep it down, it’s too poufy. You should look more professional.”

Steve sighed, “I’m happy that you’re home.”

 

It was more an escape than any obligation that he had. In fact, Steve’s only obligation he’d made for this day was to himself and he had planned to spend the whole day curled up in bed, hopefully asleep.

He’d left that plan, his parents, and a hell of a lot of paranoia in his dust only to rehash the same old mantra of conversations. It felt like they were all on a loop.

“You look like shit.”

“I know.”

“Like more like shit than you did yesterday and you looked like lizard shit, Steve. Like demogor-“

“Dustin,” He snapped with a hard look that he didn’t have the energy for. “I get it. I look terrible. I’m not sleeping much.”

He kind of hated how easy and understanding Dustin was about everything, “You’re not the only one having nightmares, Steve, you can talk to us.”

“Thanks, kid.”

“I mean it,” Dustin huffed, turning back to where Steve was dragging his feet through the aisle of the corner store. He’d just need to get out of the house. “I want you to play tonight.”

“What?”

“Dungeons and Dragons, it’ll get you out of your head. Pick a candy, the campaign will be long.”

Steve shook his head, arguing didn’t seem worth it, and grabbed a box of some gooey taffy stuff and a bag of chips. “I know I’m paying for all this shit so don’t act like you’re doing me a favor, kid.”

“Will likes licorice.”

Steve grabbed a bag and shoved it in the basket before adding the mints that Nancy liked and cotton candy, “Steve, no one likes cotton candy.”

“I do.”

“So, you’re staying?”

“Someone’s got to make sure you shits don’t get yourself killed.”

“…you have no idea what D&D is, do you?”


	8. Chapter 8

The PSA on the Wheeler’s TV said that the best way to deal with a bully was to just ignore a bully.

The words came across the screen in purple and green wacky font while some pretty blonde woman with teased out hair and a caffeine-induced red-lipped smile stretched so far that she looked like she would be more at home in a Batman comic then PBS repeated them for emphasis. She’d never been bullied in her life, Steve could just tell.

She had the same sickly sweet, almost sour cringe of a smile that people like Carol used when talking to people like Nancy, that same stench of superiority surrounding her like perfume. She used the same insincere high-pitched nasally voice that Nicole used over the loud speakers during the morning announcements, as if to remind you constantly how lucky you were to be listening to them. The same damn voice that he’d heard her and some of the cheerleaders used when they talked Molly Major’s out of Becca Roberson’s locker combination just to string ruined period panties up the flagpole.

This woman – this terrible PBS Saturday morning PSA woman that he did not trust and did not like, _‘We’ll be back after this commercial break, I am Natalia Horwitz.’_

She was every mean girl that he went to school with, every cool girl, popular girl, ‘willing to get into the backseat of his car because he’s cool’ girl. She didn’t know shit about bullying except how to cause it.

Steve hated her, resented her.

If he wasn’t so damn tired all the time, he’d write a letter to PBS and demand her resignation, he hated her so fucking much.

“Don’t be like her,” He muttered to Holly on the couch beside him. He wasn’t sure if she had been there when he sat down or not but she was there now, stilling her kicking legs and blinking up at him before holding out the Rubik’s Cube that she’d been twisting and turning.

He doesn’t know why he took it but he did, gesturing to the screen with it in his hand, “She’s just – a phony, you know. You don’t have to be like that, shouldn’t be. Guys like an authentic girl, not that you should _care_ what guys like, we’re all stupid.”

“Stupid,” She repeated. He probably shouldn’t have chosen that word, but whatever. Dustin was here all the time and swore like a sailor.

“You even paying attention to this shi-garbage?”

Holly laughed and shook her head no, her pigtails going with the movement. He cracked a smile, “You might need to know some of this someday.”

“No way, Jose.”

It felt like the first time in a long time that he actually meant it when he laughed, “You’re right, probably not. You’re too smart for any of that.”

“You know these things are impossible, right?” He added, holding the Rubik’s Cube out to her with only the red side complete. She took it back from him and chucked it on the floor with her dolls. Steve laughed, “Right on, fight the educational toy industry.”

Steve was reluctant to turn his head back towards the TV but he did so anyways. He supposed that ignoring a bully was going to make them – what? Natalia doesn’t bother to even mention what the end result would be.

Were bullies just going to realize that they’re being annoying and stop? Un-fucking-likely. Were they going to give up if you didn’t fight back? Grow tired with the nonreaction because he called bullshit, it was not the case for him. If he was being bullied. Which he wasn’t.

He was _not_ being bullied.

At most, he was being annoyed on a daily basis but he was also being annoyed by Mike, and Lucas, and Dustin on a daily basis. Were they bullies too?

It wasn’t like he was watching this stupid program for any educational purposes. It was only because Mrs. Wheeler had left the moment he pulled up to the curb for the grocery store and Mr. Wheeler had the remote in the La-Z-Boy chair on the other side of the room. There was no way in hell Steve was going to risk waking him up by feeling around him for it and anyways, Holly was watching this.

All this garbage might come in handy for her when she started kindergarten. Kids could be cruel and she was going to be pretty and smart if Nancy was any indication, it’d make her a target for a lot of reasons.

He thought ignoring a bully was pretty bullshit advice.

He had been pretty non-reactant to all of Billy’s shoves and jeers from the moment he decided to target him at the Halloween party, and that didn’t deter him in the slightest to just pack up his shit and get out of his face. It only encouraged Hargrove even more to get in his face and shove him to the ground during practice and into lockers in the hall, to degrade him with compliments in the locker room showers and call him names in class.

In fact, for a week after Steve had the literal and actual hell beaten out of him, there had been a sort of calming between them. Steve had been afforded a little peace of mind while they both licked their wounds.

Steve’s advice on how to deal with bullies – not that he would know because he’d never been bullied by anybody, just has watched a lot of these dumb early morning shows – was to let them just kick your ass. Let them get it out of their system and then swing hard with a closed fist when they came back for seconds.

He didn’t follow that advice and he should have.

He should have balled his hands up into fists and gave it to him as hard as he could in the middle of the court when Hargrove started in with his ‘constructive/ destructive/ definitely a foul and maybe even plain assault’ criticism, jabbing his elbow back into injured ribs on purpose. He should have saw through the stars of pain and kicked out hard when Hargrove bent down with his smarmy smirk and his extended hand. He should have taken him out at the knees, the groin, the face, and dropped him down to the same goddamn level.

But he hadn’t.

He hadn’t because he was stupid, and naïve, and desperately wanted things to be nice and easy again. He hadn’t because he was _dumb_ and honestly, he thought that they’d move passed whatever rivalry Billy had in his head like he’d moved passed the one he thought he had with Byers.

He’d reached for the extended hand and bit back a cry when he was shoved back onto the wooden floors, a sneer on Billy’s face and a couple of chuckles among his _lackeys_ when he was told to stay down like the bitch he was. Those people used to be his friends, Steve thought bitterly.

If he had just knocked Hargrove down a peg then than maybe he wouldn’t be being knocked down in the alley behind the arcade.

The noise in the kitchen crescendos and then collapses, neither he nor Holly looked to it. The kids were arguing about him playing with them. It was a vocal discussion, slash screaming match, slash Steve didn’t want him to play either so _pointless_.

He looked down at the character sheet that they’d gave him to fill out, his name scribbled at the top line and left otherwise blank. He took the pen apart in his lap, it didn’t have a microphone in it. He could never be too careful.

The TV said that if ignoring the bully doesn’t work then you should tell an adult. Never confront a bully.

Steve thought that all of this was unhelpful oversimplified bullshit but he could attest to that statement. Confrontation and Billy Hargrove had gone together as well as his head did with a plate, even though he was not being bullied.

Natalia Horwitz’s completely useless advice said nothing about when you were the one being confronted. She didn’t mention what you were supposed to do when your bully stalked you like a shark through hallways, and basketball practices, and into the alleyway behind the arcade. She said nothing of what you were supposed to do when the bully used every waking moment to pray on your fear that something was going to happen to a bunch of dumbass kids that stood no chance to crazed blue eyes and bloody fists, or the front bumper of a car.

Everything sucked, he concluded.

Especially _‘Signing off, I have been Natalia Horwitz’,_ useless PSA spokesperson.

Steve was so wrapped up in the writing out his PBS hate mail in his head that he didn’t hear the front door open or the new voices added to the kitchen mess until a single one cut through the fog in his head like the figure cut through the light in the living room entrance, “Steve?”

He took a sharp intake of breath and it turned to ice in his lungs, he coughed half-hearted and turned towards the voice. There was surprise pulling on Nancy’s beautiful face as she stopped short in the narrow space, dropping Jonathan’s hand like it was made of fire.

There was a vicious petty part of him that sneered _good_ , that she should be just as uncomfortable in her own house as he felt in his. A larger part of him screeched _oh_ _god_ , shouted _run_ , froze to the spot and waited for teeth to devour him. He wanted to die.

She cocked her head to the side, her mouth pulling into a narrow frown and her forehead wrinkling up in a pensive confusion, “What are you doing here?”

His chest seized up but his teeth tightened into a grind, he wanted to – he didn’t know, to yell, to beg, to blurt out that his parents were home and they were _spies_ , and just _exhausting_ to be around. He took a breath and shrugged his shoulders.

Dustin had told him that she thought he was defensive and that he had PTSD or depression, or something. She thought he wasn’t whole anymore even though he was – _a whole mess_ , his mind whispered to him because his mind was an asshole.

He shook the thought away and forced his mouth into a half-grin, holding up the grocery bag of snacks that he hadn’t let go of yet, “It’s game night, I guess.”

Jonathan ran his hand through his hair awkwardly because yeah, everything was _still_ awkward and most of it was Steve’s own fault, “Yeah, I’m – going to get Will soon for that.”

Steve didn’t have to respond because Mike groaned loudly from the kitchen, “Dungeons and Dragons is not some stupid sports game!”

“I didn’t say-“

“He’s dumb, I told you,” Mike said to someone else in the kitchen. “He doesn’t even know anything about it. It’d be like playing with a _baby_ , we don’t need him.”

“It doesn’t matter if we _need_ Steve for the quest, we _want_ him to play,” Dustin said, pushing pass Jonathan into the living room with loud steps. He rolled his eyes and said over his shoulder, “El’s never played either so it’s not even a big deal. You were out voted, three to one.”

“Will and El will agree with me.”

“No, they won’t,” Dustin rolled his eyes again before turning to give Steve a patient look. “It _is_ more than just a game, Steve. I’ll explain it to you, come on. We can make your character in here.”

 _King Steve was dead_ , he thought bitterly as he forced himself off the couch, forced himself to smile despite feeling in the very depths of his soul that he was a fucking loser. He grabbed the character sheet off the table; they didn’t even want him to play.

 _King Steve found dead, beaten into the Byers’ floor_.

_A bloody regime change._

Everything just felt so suddenly empty.

There was a huge swell of emotions – of embarrassment and helplessness, and jealousy and self-hate – inside of him, and then it bottomed out, and he felt void and empty, and exhausted. He dropped into a chair at the table when his knees felt like they were going to give out.

The sheet slipped from his hand and he felt, not okay.

Conversation merged around him, complaining, and bitching, and talking; he couldn’t hear any of it. Dustin noticed first, like the air had just shifted around Steve and he was _entuned_ to shit like that, “Hey, Steve, are you okay?”

And everything was quiet. And all eyes were on him.

He wanted to fucking _melt_ into the Upside Down.

He was fine, he wanted to say, wanted to laugh, and snap, and just – leave. His mouth fell into a slant instead and then pressed into a line, “I see what this is.”

“What?”

“Everybody is here.” He was returned with Dustin’s weary look because he _knew_ something was off with Steve’s eyes and the sudden coldness of his voice, the lifelessness of it all. “This is your club, isn’t it?”

“What, no?” Dustin said. “Steve, I told you that – I promised everybody that you’d be cool, Steve.”

 _Cool as a goddamn corpse_ , he would be. God, he didn’t want to be here anymore.

“Let me explain D&D to you and it’ll make sense, okay?” Dustin said and Steve just nodded, he didn’t care. “Dungeons and Dragons is an interactive role-playing game that was invented in-“

“Dustin, can I talk to Steve alone?” Nancy asked, hand on his shoulder in a way that was going to give her exactly what she wanted. She took the chair Dustin abandoned like they were somehow going to have a private conversation in a room full of people.

“Steve,” She said.

He wanted to say, _please love me._

He wanted to say, _take me back, make me better. Save me, tell me it was just a dream_.

He said, “What’s up, Nance?”

“You look tired, Steve,” She said and Steve wanted to laugh, _no shit_. He doesn’t react when she took one of his bandaged hands, “What happened?”

He pulled his hand back, _Save me, Nancy. Make me better._

_Fuck off, Nancy._

_It’s bullshit, Nancy._

_You never loved me, Nancy._

“I’m a klutz, how many times do I need to tell people that?”

“Steve-“ She started and then sighed, uncurling her hand around an orange pill bottle she’d been holding. “You- should take these, if you’re having trouble sleeping.”

They’re Mrs. Wheelers, her name is printed on the side of them. Steve’s eyes flickered from the bottle to Nancy’s eyes, his mouth almost watering because he wanted it. He wanted to sleep.

He swallowed and narrowed his eyes.

“What is it this?” He asked accusingly. “Collecting more shit to talk about at your _Talk Shit About Steve_ club that Dustin was telling me about?”

“What?”

Eyes turned to Dustin in question, an accusatory confusion in all the eyes that were pretending not to listen. Dustin held his hands up in surrender, “I didn’t say that was what we did! He’s – jumping to conclusions that are _wrong_ , Steve. It’s not a club.”

“You’re right. It’s a goddamn party.”

“Steve,” Dustin said, pleading. “Don’t do this.”

“No, I – I’m going to fucking do this.” He dug his fingernails into the bandages, he was going to do this because if he didn’t snap once, he’d snap into a hundred pieces. “That’s what you guys do, right? I drop Dustin off here every weekend and – and you talk about all the things you _think_ are wrong with me like _you_ would know anything.”

“I – Steve, that’s not-“

“You could just – just talk to me, Nancy,” He told her, like she wasn’t just trying to do that. “That’s what you always wanted to do anyways, talk about how fucked up everything is, how _I_ fucked up. All you wanted to do was dwell on that shit and I – I’m not dwelling on anything and you can’t believe that.”

“Steve, we just thought that-“

“Thought what?”

“-with Billy Hargrove-“

“ _Oh my god_ ,” He groaned, “All anybody wants to talk about is fucking Billy, Billy, Billy. _Billy_. If you love him so much, suck his dick, Nance. My life doesn’t revolve around Billy Hargrove-“ _except that it does, it was a constant fucking worry about where that psychopath was_.

“I don’t know why any of you got it in your minds that anything is going on between me and him but it’s not, we’re – that’s just how guys act.”

“You’re all wrong, okay, I’m fine,” He said, sounding so fucking defensive and he just couldn’t _stop_. “I’m graduating and I’m stressed out about it. I don’t understand Astronomy or Chemistry, I’m stressed about that, too. I – I really don’t give a fuck about the Upside Down, or Demogorgons, or spies, or any of that stuff. It’s water under the goddamn bridge.”

He stood up, saying coldly, “ _I. Moved. On._ Just like you did, okay?”

“Steve-“

He sighed. He didn’t want to be mad at Dustin, or the kids, or Nancy, or anybody. He sighed and forced his voice into a fake calm, “Dustin, I-“

“Will you just – Jesus Christ on cheesy rice, Steve. Shut up for one minute,” He snapped at him, and Steve just – lost that flickering of fight he had in him.

He almost wished that Billy was here, he would have kept that flame alive so Steve wouldn’t have felt so icy cold inside.

Dustin grabbed the character sheet from where it was dropped onto the floor and then grabbed Steve’s arm, “We’re going to finish this downstairs because you _are_ playing.”

Steve thought it was telling how truly upside down his life was that he allowed himself to be pulled along. After all that he said, he walked down the stairs with Dustin and sat on the basement floor. He covered his face with a tired hand, “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, you should apologize to them later. What – was that?”

“Let’s not talk about it.”

“Steve, seriously?”

“I’m just – fucking tired, man,” He sighed. “Okay, and – it hurts seeing Nancy because I loved her, and I – I overreacted. I do that sometimes, I broke Jonathan’s camera once overreacting.”

Dustin sighed and then sighed louder, “God, I used to think that you were _so_ cool. We all thought you were cool but you’re not.”

“What?” He hadn’t excepted that, almost confused that Dustin was actually listening to him and not talking about it. “I – I am cool!”

“No, you’re not,” Dustin told him, holding up the character sheet. “You named your character your _own_ name. That is so lame, you giant nerd.”

“I’m the nerd?” Steve laughed incredulous, feeling almost normal. “You’re the one with Star Wars sheets, twerp.”

“Because Star Wars is awesome.”

“…Fine, I’ll give you that but it’s not cool to drool on Chewbacca’s face every night.”

Dustin laughed, “Let’s finish your character, Steve.”

He really doesn’t know why he nodded, “I want to be a wizard.”

“You’re _so_ not being a wizard, Steve!”

 

Steve felt more like himself when he slipped back upstairs, having ate the cotton candy and the taffy that he’d brought. He had a character who he maintained should be named Steve _because Steve is an awesome name, Dustin! Coolest in the land._

He took loud steps into the kitchen to announce himself and scratched the back of his neck, “Uh, guys.”

“Steve,” Nancy was the first to address him, removing something quickly from the counter that he didn’t find important. She turned away from Jonathan where they had clearly been disagreeing about something, a cup of hot chocolate in her hands.

He frowned, he just knew that they were fighting over him.

“Uh…hi, Will,” Steve said first, noticing the boy next to Mike and Max.

He got a small smile back, “Hi, Steve.”

“I just wanted to, uh – well, to all of you really, I was being an ass,” He said. “I – I really _am_ fine and it’s kind of frustrating, you know? But I wanted to say that I’m sorry if I ruined the night. I’ll leave if you-“

“We don’t want you to leave.”

“Oh – okay.”

“And I made you this,” Nancy said, holding out the hot chocolate.

Steve didn’t miss the pointed look that she gave Jonathan as he took it but shrugged it off, “Thanks, Nance.”

The Winter Formal Committee was holding their weekly meeting at the Wheeler’s, Steve realized the fact slowly as girls trickled through the front door and into the kitchen. All these people from school were going to be here and Steve was going to play a nerdy board game with kids.

He wanted to die.

He _was_ going to die.

He was ready for the world to open up and the Upside Down take him. This was the true death of his reputation.

He tried to flirt with Donna McAvoy at the kitchen counter because she was into him, because _everybody_ was into him except Nancy. She was into Jonathan, which was fine because Steve was over it.

He wasn’t good enough for her, _fair_. He accepted that.

He had pushed her away with all the things that he didn’t want to talk about, that she needed to talk about. He wasn’t as supportive as he was supposed to be and he was pretty sure that she was happier now.

It hurt his chest thinking about her with Jonathan but it was a good thing, she deserved the best of the world and Steve just hadn’t been that.

He forced himself to gulp down the chalky taste of the hot chocolate.

He tried to flirt and _‘trying_ ’ being the word because he was also tried, and not into Donna at all, and he really couldn’t be bothered to care about how her mom makes the best hot chocolate. Steve didn’t even _like_ hot chocolate.

He was yelled at from the stairs to hurry up, they were about to start.

He told her that he was just supervising and she said that her little brother played D&D, maybe someday that they could supervise together. It was the perfect opportunity for a smooth exit except that Steve was _dumb_ and replied with, “They don’t like other people, no.”

And then just walked away.

 _Fucking idiot_.

Steve couldn’t even argue with that voice.

She doesn’t really know Eleven, or El, or Jane – whatever. Hell, he didn’t even know she was _here_ but there she was, sitting across from him at the small table looking like a normal harmless thirteen year old girl.

He didn’t know her, doesn’t think he has even _talked_ to her but he knew of her from Dustin and the gang, and the way Nancy had talked about Mike longing for her. She was his first love even if he hadn’t realized it yet.

Steve blinked.

She was so important to them, she meant more than the world she saved. She meant so much that these fucking little shithead morons used themselves as bait to draw demo-dogs away from her.

It has been nearly four weeks since the world almost ended and bruises still clung in sickly yellow to his face and ribs, and he’d gnawed open his split lip at least once a day but El looked fine. She saved the world and only looked a little tired, looked a hell of a lot better than the debilitating exhaustion Steve felt in his _bones_.

He hadn’t even saved the world.

Across this little rickety table and squeezed between boy talking about shit that neither of them knew jack shit about, Steve realized that she knew. Her big brown eyes held a complete and total understanding and it hit like a rock in his chest, like Billy fucking Hargrove kicking him in the ribs because she _knew_.

The bruises under the jacket he didn’t take off, the black and blue of his back and elbows from being knocked around. The guilt that ate at him, the shame that covered him, she knew. He could tell that she just – she knew of Billy and all that Billy fucking _does_ to him, and that Steve’s too tired to really stand up to it anymore. He yawned, and looked away.

The remaining drops of his hot chocolate were too sweet and grainy all at once, it left an unpleasant taste on his tongue.

He didn’t meet her eyes again.

He was so goddamn tired.

Steve had no memory of falling asleep. He’d been listening about some kind of giants that were approaching and then his eyes were snapping open with the closing feeling of breathing tunnels, alive tunnels, tunnels that _eat_ you. He sucked in dust and stale air, and coughed until he thought he’d suffocate.

He was wake but he didn’t remember falling asleep, and he knew for damn sure that there was absolutely no way in hell that he fell asleep in the blanket fort. That meant that someone moved him and the idea of a bunch of annoying thirteen year old brats picking him up and moving his unconscious body _again_ made him extremely uncomfortable.

He blinked again, pretty sure he was actually awake.

He couldn’t hear any noise so either the party learned to shut the fuck up for once in their lives, or they were gone. _Or dead._

“They’re not dead, shut up.”

The fort felt oppressively humid with his own breath and he didn’t like the way it made his face feel sticky and damp. He needed to get up, his neck hurt from sleeping somewhere he clearly didn’t fit and that meant that he was going to have a headache tomorrow.

“What was that?”

Steve sat up and nearly collided his skull with Jonathan’s face, “What the _fuck_?”

“Fucking _Christ_ , Jonathan!? What the literal and actual-“ He breathed in, hand clutched to his chest “- _fuck_.”

“Sorry.”

“Who just – this is why people call you a freak, swear to god. Like fucking Michael Myers, asshole. Why are you – what were you even _doing_? Watching me sleep? Perv.”

Jonathan just leaned back on his heels, patient as he waited for Steve to calm down before he said plainly, “I was trying to wake you up. Hopper took Dustin home for you, and Mrs. Wheeler said you could sleep on the couch.”

“Why would she do that?” He asked, realizing that there were tears at the corners of his eyes when he rubbed at them. Mrs. Wheeler barely _liked_ him. “What time is it?”

“It’s almost eleven o’clock, Steve.”

“How-“

“Uh, look, Nancy only used half of one in the hot chocolate. She just wanted you to sleep.”

“What did she-“ He stopped. It was honestly a miracle that his brain was functioning this much, “Did she drug me?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s so fucked up. All of you guys let her do that.”

“Yeah,” Jonathan said, sitting down cross-legged instead of just getting the fuck out of there. If Steve had the energy, he thought about punching him. Not that it would really do more than maybe get his ass kicked and definitely make Nancy even more pissed off at him.

He sighed, and Jonathan sighed and said, “I saw you watching the PBS public service announcement.”

“So, what?”

“It was on bullying,” Jonathan shrugged, “It was the same one that they made me watch in the guidance office after you broke my camera, after we fought. It might be – helpful when dealing with bullies.”

“Well one, I’m not being bullied so that shit doesn’t apply to me,” Steve told him. “And two, I never bullied you. I don’t think we ever even _talked_ to each other until you-“ _Invaded my privacy, took pictures of my girlfriend, stole Nancy from me_ “-and Nancy became friends.”

“And you know what, I get it okay? I really do,” Steve cut him off before Jonathan could come back with some counter argument. “I broke your camera and ripped up your pictures but I’m not _sorry_ but you took pictures of me and my friends. I said some shitty things and you rightfully kicked my ass but like, I apologized. I replaced your camera, I got a shotgun pointed at my goddamn face and I – I apologized, and I meant it.”

“That’s not where I was going with this, that’s not the point I’m trying to make,” Jonathan said with a sigh, like Steve was just too slow and too stupid to understand anything. “A lot of people called me names, a few pushed me around. I got a few bruises, a rip in my jacket.”

Steve didn’t even notice that there was a hole at the shoulder of his jacket from where Billy had pushed him into his locker. He supposed that was how his life was just going to go for now on.

If his life had sunk so low as to be in the blanket fort of his ex’s kid brother with Jonathan Byers talking about hurt feelings than he might as well look like shit too.

He’d been a pretty child, a handsome boy. He had not been smart, a protégé like his parents had hoped he be. He wasn’t talented or gifted, or all that great of an athlete but he was such a good looking kid and that had made up for it. He couldn’t even be that anymore.

He felt the sudden urge to cry.

He was just – _dumb._ He was so fucking dumb that he easily got drugged by his ex-girlfriend with chalky hot chocolate and needed help on take-home exams from thirteen year old nerds, and his tutors had all quit on him. Even his parents told him all the time that he needed to settle down with a smart girl because he was – he was just dumb, and he was never going to be anything else.

He was dumb and he was – he was _weak_.

He couldn’t fucking handle the Upside Down despite it being locked behind a gate, couldn’t handle Billy Hargrove, or his parents being home. Or just – anything.

Maybe he really was the phony.

“I didn’t want to call it with it was either,” Jonathan was saying, had been talking and Steve didn’t even realize it. “But the difference between Hargrove and – I don’t know, Damien Sawyer was that Damien only beat me up, Hargrove put you in the hospital. He could have killed you.”

“So – so what?” He asked, messing up his already messy hair. “I, why are you blaming me for people picking on you? How is that my fault too?”

“Too?”

“I replaced your camera, you won the fight and – and Nancy loves you. You’re fucking _golden_ , man. You have the best mom, and brother, and _Nancy_. You’re better than me, is that what you want to hear? Nancy chose you so stop – stop blaming me for everything shitty in your life when I have my own shitty life to deal with.”

“Steve, that’s not-“

“I need to get home,” He said, crawling out of the fort because he had no dignity left to give a shit about. “My parents are home and I have a curfew. And just, for the record, I’m not being fucking bullied.”

“Hey,” Jonathan said, out of the fort and hand on Steve’s shoulder. “Just – if you were, or ever are, I know the feeling. You can talk to me.”

Steve shook his shoulder free, “Nice PSA, I don’t need it.”


	9. Chapter 9

Steve was pissed.

He was tired, and pissed off, and every step that he took out of the Wheeler’s basement only cemented the feeling to him. The anger festered beneath his skin, picked up wind and whirled faster and faster. He felt like a whirlwind, like a tornado, and his ears buzzed with it.

He pushed the door open with Jonathan half a step behind him, talking softly and _calmly,_ and telling him that he shouldn’t drive like he _cared_. As if, he did not let Nancy drug him and trap him inside his own mind. His limbs felt like heavy dead weight from the shoulder down and his neck hurt, his brain hurt, and he didn’t feel guilty for even a second about shoving Jonathan a step back.

He didn’t care about ignoring Mrs. Wheeler’s freighted concern as he moved through the house. She didn’t even _like_ him, she probably wished that it had been him to go missing and die, not Barb.

Nancy would have gotten over him dying but not Barb, she would never get over that.

And Nancy.

He tried so hard to ignore Nancy in the doorway, in Jonathan’s Talking Heads t-shirt and her pajama pants tucked into her socks, with her shower-wet hair and her big blue eyes, and her shoeless feet following him outside. He wanted to scream, to shake apart, to cry. He wanted to tell her that he wanted nothing to fucking do with her ever again.

He wanted to beg her to take him back.

He wanted to tell her that all she did was _push_ , that she was always pushing things to be the way that she wanted them and that nothing was well enough for her if it wasn’t. He wanted to tell her that if she thought that she’d find happiness in Jonathan Byers than she was fucking delusional, that she was wrong because she was never happy, because she was always right and love was about compromising. He wanted to tell her that she was trying so hard not to become her parents that all she was ever going to become was alone.

She pushed, and pushed, and pushed him away every time he tried to get close, tried to move on. She pushed up against him with all these issues that he couldn’t deal with that, that he didn’t know how to deal with, that just fucking hurt. She pushed her guilt down his throat and smothered him with it, and with his own guilt that he was _not_ ignoring regardless of what she thought.

She pushed against their relationship until it broke and now she was pushing against him until he broke too.

He wasn’t handling things right like he hadn’t handled Barb’s death right so she was pushing on him again. He just wanted to breathe.

He couldn’t talk to her, couldn’t listen to her tell him that she was just _helping_ him, that she was _right_ and he was _wrong_ because she was so much _smarter_. His senses were foggy and he didn’t feel very helped. He felt lied to and manipulated, and used, and _‘I really can’t do this with you right now, Nancy, I can’t fucking do this.’_

“Okay,” She assured, shivering in the winter air. “Okay, we’ll talk later.”

She sounded so understanding, so sure. He had fell in love with how she _got_ him, how open her eyes were and how smart she was, how pretty. Like everything, that was all bullshit too because she wouldn’t be pushing into his hand a plastic bag of blue sleeping pills if she knew him, “Please, take these. Use them when you need them. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

_Liar. Shut up._

_No._

“Okay.”

“I’m serious, Steve, you drive kids around and-“

“I said _okay_ , Nancy.”

“Okay.”

The drive between the Wheeler’s and his house was fifteen minutes and he made it in nine. He sat in his car for over an hour in the driveway watching the time tick by on the clock radio as cold seeped in.

His parents were already in bed when he pushed open the heavy front door to a dark house, a house that might as well have been empty for all anybody cared. He slammed the door shut and leaned against it, locking lock after lock, and double checking. Triple checking.

It didn’t matter how much noise he made. It didn’t matter if the floor boards creaked and whined beneath his trainers or if he slammed shut every cabinet and drawer in the kitchen because they wouldn’t come down to see what was wrong.

They’d just wait until the morning to make passive aggressive comments about people needing to be more considerate of other people. They had the routine down like a well-oiled machine, no sense in changing it now.

_If they were even there in the morning._

He sighed

He pulled bread out of the cabinet and whatever he could find from the fridge, stacking lunch meat, lettuce, and a shit load of cheese on top of the bread and smothering the whole thing in mayonnaise. He picked up the sandwich and then threw it in the trash.

He didn’t feel like eating or that he could eat if he wanted to.

He felt stupid. He felt tired.

He cleaned off the knife and the plate he had used and shoved them back in their correct drawers before turning on his feet and going upstairs to his room. He wanted nothing more than to just collapse into bed. It was his every intention to do just that, to close his eyes and drift to sleep, and pray that tomorrow was a better day.

The clock on his bedside table mocked him with neon green numbers, ticking by ever so slowly to two in the morning, and then passed it.

Steve tore his room apart in search of microphones and miniature cameras, unable to shake this ridiculous feeling that he was being watched even as he told himself that this was all bullshit.

_Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. What fucking universe does someone give a shit about a C student in Hawkins? You’re paranoid._

Or not paranoid enough and they were banking on that. _Shut up._

He drowned out the warring arguments in his head, drowned out any chance of any microphone hearing him with a mix tape that he’d made for a road trip with Tommy and Carol last year. He turned it up as long as he could go and let Billy Joel, Madonna, the Bee Gee’s _Stayin’ Alive_ vibrate in his veins.

_Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin’ alive._

The song had been one of his favorites but now it just sounded mocking, sounded ironic because the one thing Steve was just barely managing to do was stay alive. If Jonathan wasn’t such a music snob with a hate-on for disco, Steve thought that he’d appreciate it.

He was alive but ironically.

Nancy had drugged him to help him, hilarious.

He grabbed a rainbow-colored zebra plushie off his bookshelf, he’d spent fifty dollars playing ring toss games to win the animal for Nancy a week after she’d picked him. It had taken him over an hour and he had been so damn proud when he’d pulled it from where it was hidden in his jacket and presented it to her at the top of the Ferris wheel. She gave it back to him two weeks ago.

She gave him a box of stuff he’d got her – notes, and not-quite-dead flowers, a necklace, plastic rings he won at the arcade.  She had told him that it just didn’t feel right having after the way they left it.

 _Because it was bullshit,_ he knew what she meant, _because he was bullshit and couldn’t just let go of this shit._

It was paranoia at its heart but it was satisfying to cut the zebra to pieces, to stab into a fuzzy embodiment of his failed relationship with his desk scissors and gut the stuffing out of it. He snapped the rings, broke the chain on the neckless, cut up flowers and ripped the petals from roses. He dug his fingers inside of plushie stuffing, looking for microphones, for cameras hidden in the beaded eyes.

It would be sick, sick irony if his downfall came because he couldn’t let go.

The music is too loud and he doesn’t hear his door open until his mother said in the lull between songs, “My god, Stevie, what on earth are you doing in here?”

His room was a mess, his drawers torn open and emptied onto the floor, and he just smiled his boy next door smile. He was wrist deep inside the belly of a zebra stuffed animal and there was paranoia in his heart, and he _smiled_ , “Just getting a head start on spring cleaning, Ma.”

“You’re making a mess, Steven.”

“I’ll clean it, Ma. Sorry about the noise.”

He passed out face down on the floor sometime after four and woke up crying at six. He couldn’t even remember why.

He cleaned his room and threw away anything that reminded him of Nancy, and he hid his bat beneath the bed. He washed his hair in the bathroom sink and put on a nice shirt, went to church like they all pretended they did every Sunday morning, if they were together or not.

They were a bullshit family imagine and Steve could barely keep up.

They ate Sunday dinner together for the first time in over two months. Steve got a passive lecture about ‘kids these days’ with their loud music, blatant disregard for curfews, and disrespect for how much their parents worked for the things they have. He _just_ barely didn’t roll his eyes.

His jacket still had a tear at the shoulder and Steve lied. He opened his mouth and he spat the words on the table, “I was on drugs last night, I can’t be held accountable for my actions.”

His tired blank expression was met with two severe looks, like their weird parent hive mind had agreed to bring war on drug to his ass so he told them part of the truth, “Someone slipped something into my drink last night, I didn’t know.”

He told them, “I was with a party.”

They told him to be careful, that he shouldn’t let people do that to him as if he had given Nancy a fucking permission slip. They told him to be smarter, more mature, _better._

He said, “I know.”

He said, “It was my fault, I’m sorry.”

He pleaded, _please, leave._

On Monday morning, he slapped his alarm clock off his side table after a sleepless night and broke it. He smiled to his parents, skipped breakfast, and dropped Dustin off at school before he remembered that he had Karen Wheeler’s sleeping pills in a plastic bag inside his jacket pocket.

He parked his car behind the baseball dugouts, used his jacket as a blanket and took two pills. He woke up just long enough to drive Dustin home and then skipped basketball to sleep on the living room couch.

On Tuesday, he threw the pills away.

On Wednesday, Hargrove checked him during practice so hard that he fell and sprained his wrist. He refused to wear the brace the nurse gave him.

His parents fought loudly in his father’s offices about women calling for his dad and his mom’s writer’s block. He ate dinner alone.

On Thursday, Dustin showed him the tie he got for Snowball, he failed a geometry test because he didn’t even _know_ there was a test in geometry, and his parents made dinner reservations. They told him about the weekend conference in New York City. They wanted him to go.

 _Liars_.

There were words that were unsaid but he heard them in the subtext anyways. There was something wrong with him that even they noticed, that he woke up crying and shouting, and they _heard_. He wasn’t eating, wasn’t going to school, was showering in the sink because the thought of closing the bathroom door all the way made panic crawl up his throat.

They didn’t say it but he knew the underlying message of their nice little words, he was broken and they couldn’t have that. He looked broken and broken children didn’t sell psychology books. It made them look bad.

They told him, “You seem stressed, honey.”

They said, “You can start making connections, son. Those are important.”

They gave him their fake publicity smiles and stated, “Everybody needs to get out of this city every now and then.”

“Hawkins is a _town_ , Ma.”

“It is the same difference, Stevie.”

“You’re right.”

He didn’t want to go with them and he doesn’t tell them that. He didn’t want to be out of town with possible spies who could, for all he knew, be lying about the conference. It wasn’t like he could just _leave_ Dustin and the party to their own dumbass devices anyways, they’d get themselves killed.

Jesus, that thought alone made his chest _hurt_.

He rubbed absentmindedly at his sternum, “I told Dustin that I would drive him to the dance tomorrow.”

“I’m sure his mother can drive him, Stevie,” His mother told him dismissively. “It is not your responsibility to care for someone else’s kid, you’re not his babysitter.”

Except that he _was_ and he had _told_ her that.

He forced himself to smile, “Yeah, I guess.”

On Friday morning, he packed a bag for New York City like he was told to do, fixed his hair in his bedroom mirror, and chugged an entire bottle of vinegar while his parents argued about flight times. He topped it off with half a carton of orange juice next and smiled to his mother, reminding her that she needed to call the school to tell them that he wouldn’t be there.

She petted down his hair, “Of course, sweetheart.”

They stopped for breakfast halfway to the airport because Steve said he felt sick, said that he needed to piss, said _pull over, please_. He vomited vinegar and orange juice in the parking lot and then again on the bathroom floor of McDonalds.

He told them that he was sorry, “I didn’t realize that I was sick, Ma.”

He took a taxi home so they didn’t have to miss their flight, made promises that he was never going to keep about calling them later and going to a doctor. Instead, he took the phone off the hook and curled up on the couch until he had to pick Dustin up from school.

“You look like-“

“Shit, I know,” Steve sighed as the thirteen year old shithead took his sweet ass time getting into the car. He smelt like he just discovered cologne and it made Steve’s stomach do summersaults. “I don’t really need to know which animal’s shit I resemble today. I was sick.”

Dustin leaned back towards the door like Steve just told him that had the virus from Dawn of the Dead, hand on the handle and door half open, “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean I just threw up so shut the fucking door and stop letting my heat out,” He told him, giving him his most patented parent look until he listened. “Now, shut up and get that look off your face, it was nothing. I did it on purpose.”

“You threw up _on purpose_? We just learned about that in health, Steve, if you have-“

“I don’t have an eating disorder, chill out,” He rolled his eyes, waving him off with a dismissive hand. Dustin was sweet but he was too fucking much most of the time. “It was a whole thing and now I’m not going to New York City.”

“You were going to go to New York, _today_ of all days?” Dustin asked incredulous. “Steve! You promised that you were going to fix my-“

“Jesus Christ, _chill_ out, Dustin, and listen, I just said that I’m _not_ going to New York. Use the damn context clues of me being here right now and us not, in fact, being in New York, it’s safe to say that I’m going to fix your fucking hair for this dance. I promised and all that shit, right.”

“Friends don’t break promises.”

“Exactly.”

“So, you consider us friends then?” He asked like he just caught Steve in some big ass lie. “I’m only asking because you’ve been kind of a jerk lately to, well, everybody.”

“Well, you all conspired against me to drug me so forgive me.”

“I wasn’t a part of that. I was in the basement with you so I didn’t know or else I would have-“

“ _You_ didn’t know, I know that,” Steve said, pulling the car into reverse to pull out. “I’m going to bitch about this for a little while longer and then it’ll be water under the bridge, alright? And someone needs to knock Mike off his fucking pedestal before you dipshits get to high school and someone does it with their fist. He’s an asshole.”

“But he’s _your_ asshole.” That got a laugh out of Steve which was Dustin intention. “He’s an asshole but he _does_ like you and a lot of people are worried about you because we’ve established that you look like a variety of animal shit half the time. He was just being a jerk about D &D. That’s how middle children are, they have to be assholes or you’ll forget that they’re there.”

They’re both only children, neither of them really know what middle children were supposed to be like but Steve shrugged it off, “Okay, whatever. First things first, we’re getting you a proper tie. I’m not letting you wear that fucking Star Wars monstrosity that you showed me like it was _cool_. I haven’t put in all this effort into teaching you how to dance just to let you do that to yourself.”

“It has Yoda on it, Steve, I’ll look wise.”

“You’ll look like a huge dork.”

“I know like three girls that saw Return of the Jedi, they all said it was cool.”

“If one of those girls is Nancy when we took you nerds to see it, she was lying.”

“…Fine, I know two girls.”

“Max and Eleven don’t count,” Steve rolled his eyes. “And this is a formal event, leave your geek stuff for your geeky friends, not something that you’ll show your kids one day. You think people are going to give a shit about Star Wars in a few years? No.”

“They – god, that is so _wrong_ , I don’t even know where to start, Steve.”

“Then don’t start,” He told him as a playful warning. “I’ve got ties, you can borrow one.”

“Okay, but – I want a bow tie then.”

“...Deal.”

 

 

Dustin’s room had an earthly smell to it. It was something damp and wet, and dirty and rotten under a layer of disinfectant and the winter air through a cracked window. He apologized, told Steve that they were going to rip up the carpet soon and showed him where Mews had been eaten, where he found the shell of his dead turtle.

Steve’s stomach flipped and he swallowed hard, “Cool.”

“You look a little green, Steve,” Dustin said with a weary look. “Are you sure you’re okay, didn’t you throw up today? Like, threw up a lot.”

“Three times.”

Steve didn’t let his eyes waver from Dustin’s incredulous look. He felt – better, good, normal. His parents were gone for at least the weekend and most likely longer. He felt like he could actually breathe.

“You worry too much, kid, you know that?” He told him before telling him to shower and wash off that horrendous cologne ( _seriously, throw that shit away)._ He told him to get dressed and put a dry towel on his shoulders so his shirt doesn’t get wet, “I’ll take care of everything else. You’ll look really cool.”

“Are you sure you can do that?” Dustin asked. “You’re like a huge dork now.”

“I-“ Steve scoffed, “How dare you, I am awesome!”

Dustin laughed, “Sorry, just – this is the biggest thing to ever happen to me, Steve. I’m nervous, I can’t be in charge of my mouth when I’m nervous even though you really aren’t that cool. Sorry.”

“Dustin,” Steve said and then stopped. He closed his eyes before sighing, “The world almost ended _twice_ and this is the biggest thing that has ever happened to you?”

“Uh, yeah, Steve. This is the _Snowball_.”

Dustin ran off and Steve kind of just marveled how fucking enthusiastic the kid was about everything. He wondered if he had been like that when he was thirteen but shook his head, _no, no way._

Dustin was a level of intensity and energy that Steve would need a fucking mountain of drugs to reach. He hoped that he had held that same wide-eyed optimism that Dustin did but a part of him knew that he hadn’t.

It was the same part of him that felt a crushing level of anxiety that Dustin was going to have that squashed tonight. He’d listened to Dustin talk the whole drive to his house about wooing girls, and dancing, and how maybe he might even dance with Max – “As friends, of course, because like, she and Lucas have a thing going on. I know when I have no chance.”

Except that he really didn’t.

Dustin was the kind of kid that thought he could tame a faceless monster from another world, the kind of kid that thought he could save the world like they were all fucking Scooby Doo. He didn’t think twice about how Steve shouldn’t even be here because he was a _senior_ , and cool, and had better shit to do than this.

He was the kind of kid that didn’t understand that Star Wars was for nerds, and middle school was cruel, high school crueler. It didn’t matter if he knew the waltz or had cool hair, or if it was Steve that dropped his off or his mother, girls just aren’t going to be interested sometimes.

But the kid was smiling and excited, so Steve smiled and hoped for the best. He told Dustin all the shit that he wished someone had told him on the drive over. He told him about girls and all the ways he knew how to impress them, told him not to let people pressure him into anything, and he was honest when he told him, “You look great, okay? You look – you look great. Great. You look like a million bucks.”

Dustin was going to have a great time, and Steve’s parents were gone, and he was happy. He felt normal, and better, and he should be happy so he _was_ – he was happy. Happy.

He saw Nancy through the windows in the doors and, it didn’t even hurt as much because he – he was happy.

 

“Steve?”

“Hey, hey kid,” Steve grinned, voice an awed kind of whisper as he looked over the empty football field. He had an easy relaxed smile on his face. “What’cha doin’ out here, kiddo?”

“Kiddo?” Dustin repeated incredulous. Steve’s eyes were doing that shiny kind of thing that he’d seen his mom’s eyes do when she drank too much wine during 60 Minutes. “So, you’re like, drunk or something?”

“Pst, no,” He rolled his eyes, wobbling a little bit as he weaved his long legs up higher in the bleachers. Dustin followed, hovering behind him close enough that he thought that he might be able to keep Steve from cracking his skull on the concrete if he tripped. “What ah-bout the dance?”

“It’s really hot in there so I came outside to cool down and saw your car,” Dustin explained. “What are you doing out here, Steve? It’s cold.”

He shrugged his shoulders, dropping down onto a bleacher with a sigh and taking a seat. He didn’t say anything for a while, taking a sip from his flask and then holding it out.

“Steve, I’m thirteen.”

“I – shit, right,” He said and laughed before quieting back down. “Hey, kid.”

“Yeah, Steve.”

“We saved the world.”

He smiled, “Yeah, we did.”

“It…” Steve waved his hand dismissively in the air, his wrist still kind of hurting. “It really fucking hurts, you know that. The world.”

“I know, Steve,” Dustin nodded, sitting down next to him on the bleachers. He shivered in his suit jacket and then found Steve’s jacket thrown over his shoulders. “Steve, it’s like thirty degrees.”

He only had a sweater on beneath his jacket, a thin one now that Dustin got a good look at it, and he was grinning like an idiot, “Did you dance with a pretty girl?”

“Y-yeah.”

“Told ya, man, you look great.”

“It was Nancy,” Dustin blurted out, the cold burning the blush on his face.

Steve looked away for a moment before grinning again, it felt cheap and lonely, “That’s great, man. She’s a total babe, I bet people were jealous.”

“Steve, let’s go inside. It’s cold.”

“I – you should get back inside,” Steve told him, standing up. He put his hands inside of his pockets. “Dance with more girls, eat shitty food, all that. It’s too cold for you out here.”

“And for you, Steve, let’s just-“

“I’ll be fine,” He told him. “I’ll be in my car. Sobering up, you know. I’ll be good to go in an hour.”

He wasn’t drunk just – breathing, alive, able to _think_. All the stuff that felt like it was too close to the surface and clouded up his mind was at such a great distance. There were no teeth gnawing at his insides, just locked behind a gate.

His parents were out of town, he was happy.

He wasn’t drunk, just a little buzzed because the dance ended in an hour and he had to drive.

He wasn’t drunk so when Dustin walked him to his car and told him that sometimes he worried about him, Steve didn’t tell him that someone probably definitely _should_ be worried about him but it shouldn’t be him. He wasn’t the problem of some middle school kid.

He didn’t tell him that he worried about him too, that he worried all the fucking time about everything.

He didn’t say that he often wished, hoped, prayed that when he fell asleep that he would stay asleep. At least he knew why he was so afraid in his dreams.

He didn’t say, _help_.

He didn’t say, _I don’t know how to fix me._

 _I don’t want to_.

He didn’t explain – didn’t know how to explain how much everything felt like when he was eleven and swum too far out into the ocean because he had just wanted someone to give him parameters to live in. He didn’t tell him that the shore was the first thing he’d lost and the most jarring or that that was how he felt all the fucking time now.

He never lost the fear, just the strength to swim back.

The lifeguard had told him that it was okay to cry when he was brought back to shore but he hadn’t. He couldn’t. He said a polite ‘ _thank you’_ and ‘ _my parents are over there,_ ’ and he ran off as fast as he could.

A lot of life felt like his parents not even _noticing._ His mom passed out with her martini and her book under the umbrella and his dad far off at a payphone making calls.

He blinked and he laughed, “Like I said, Dustin, I’m _fine_. I pretended to be sick so I could take you to your dance, and you’re out here fussing over me? No way, kid, get back inside.”

“Are you sure?”

_I’m happy, I’m happy, I’m alive, I’m happy. My parents are in New York City, the world didn’t end. Billy Hargrove isn’t here._

There was no reason to be unhappy.

He smiled and he said nothing about how many times he had thought it would have been a justified ending of the King of Hawkins High if he had gone out a martyr. If he had not made it out of that tunnel, that fight, the junk yard. If it had been him and not Barb then people would have loved him, he would have gone out on top and everything would have been _easy._

It would have been so much easier than this.

“You got all dressed up just to worry about me being a little cold? Seriously? Get your priorities in order, Henderson,” He told him, nudging him back towards the door. “Get your ass in there and have the best damn night of your life, kid. You _saved_ the world.”

Dustin didn’t look too convince but Steve gestured around the parking lot and some of the people in it, “I’ve got company, kid.”

“Do you know any of those people? They could be criminals.”

“They’re probably – parents, or something. People picking up their siblings so, _go_. Have fun.”

 

Clarissa Bernard was tiny and pale with eyes so big and blue, and he could let himself forget all of that when his eyes were closed and his hands were tangled in loose frizzing curls. He could forget a hell of a lot when the heat was blasting on high from the vents and her chapped lips were on his.

Her fingers were chilled and long, slipping beneath his shirt and into his hair. He could taste the Dr. Pepper Chapstick on her lips and the minty flavor of breath mints, and he was so ready to ask her to go home with him when the car rocked with the force of the backseat door being thrown open.

Steve pulled back with a start, “What the – Dustin?”

“You’re Jenny’s big sister, right?” Dustin asked and Clarissa flushed, wiping at her smeared Chapstick as he squinted at her critically. “Is that a hickey on your neck? Gross.”

“Dustin!” Steve hissed. “What are you _doing_?”

“The dance is over,” He shrugged. “You really _do_ look like Jenny, I think she was over there somewhere. Steve, take us to get ice cream.”

“I should – find my sister,” Clarissa blushed, tucking her hair behind her ear to smooth it down. “See you around, Steve.”

“Na –Clarissa, you don’t have to…” Steve trailed off as the door was shut behind her. He turned a glare to Dustin in the backseat, staring at him expectantly. “What?”

“Is that how you’re supposed to kiss someone?” He asked. “Like you’re eating their face.”

“That’s not what – I didn’t look like that.”

“Dude, it was like a Demogorgon.”

Steve hushed him and rolled his eyes before wiping at his mouth. He sighed, “You said us.”

“Yeah, _us_ , all of us,” Dustin said gesturing out the window to where seven pairs of eyes were pointedly not looking at them.

He sunk down in his chair at the sight of Nance and Jonathan, “Dustin, I fucking hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This got too long so Steve and Nancy will probably talk in the next chapter (or not, I let these characters do what they want). 
> 
> Also, I haven't said it enough but thank you so very much to everybody that has commented, gave kudos, subscribed and bookmarked. It means the world.


	10. Chapter 10

“Are you doing anything tomorrow?”

Nancy had been sitting with Jonathan at a table away from Steve in his booth and away from the kids all gushing over Snowball at a cluster of tables. He was tired, not blind and he could see that she’d been staring at him for the better part of fifteen minutes.

They’d only been here for seventeen minutes and Steve was positive that he didn’t have lipstick on his face.

They weren’t even dating, he shouldn’t feel guilty about kissing Clarissa.

He sighed.

Sleeping, he hoped that he’d be doing a lot of that tomorrow. Realistically, he would likely be _trying_ to sleep which was decidedly less fun. Looking for microphones in the new VCR, he might do that. He might try to finish some of his college application essays.

He felt like screaming, all the time.

He wanted to unhinge his jaw and wail into the sky until someone fucking heard him and told him how to fix himself. He wanted someone to tell him that they saw him and they understood, and they _knew_. He wanted to sink a hot needle into his lips and sew his mouth shut until he starved sadness from his bones.

He wanted to die.

He could do all of that, _tomorrow_.

He worked a smile onto his face, “Got a clear schedule, Nance, what’s up?”

Her mouth turned up into a small smile and his heart fluttered at it, “Oh, that’s great.”  

_Let’s hang out, Nance. Let’s get back together, Nance. Let me love you again, Nance._

God, he was pathetic.

“Theater is painting sets tomorrow,” She told him. “We could always use a hand. Don’t you still have those paint rollers in your garage?”

 _How the fuck was he supposed to know that? When did he ever know that?_ “Probably, yeah.”

“You could bring them if you wanted to help.”

“Yeah, I could help. I guess.”

His parents weren’t home and he wanted that. He wanted to be alone, to be miles away from them so he was happy. All he wanted was for Nancy to be happy and she was happy with Jonathan, and she was smiling at him because he was _helping_ her, because he was _useful,_ and okay, and that made her happy. He should be happy.

It felt like the world was suffocating him _all the time_.

He should be happy and he _wasn’t_.

“…Steve?”

He blinked, looking up from the sugary depths of the ice cream he ordered. He blinked again, “Yeah?”

“I said your name like three time, Steve.”

“And that would be the fourth then,” He said, giving her a lopsided smile. She wasn’t smiling anymore. So much for happiness.

“Are you sleeping?”

“Like a dream, baby.” _A nightmare._

“Steve.”

“Nancy, _seriously_ ,” He said in a voice that was very close to becoming a whine. “When did you become the dream police? Are you living inside my head now, Nance?”

“ _Steve_.”

She _loved_ Cheap Trick, that should have made her laugh. He used to make her laugh because _‘You’re an idiot, Steve Harrington.’_

“You’re tired, Steve,” She pointed out, dropping the paper-thin act that all she wanted was his help. He’d drive to her house in the morning and drop off the rollers, tell her that he had plans that he forgot about.

She didn’t want him there anyways.

If she needed help than she’d ask Jonathan, not some fucking screw up that got her best friend killed.

“You smell like alcohol,” She said bluntly.  “I know that’s not some new cologne you’re trying out or whatever it was you told Lucas about it. I care about you and I don’t want to see you putting yourself in harm’s way like this, especially because you drive around-“

“ _Jesus.”_

“Steve-“

“Can you like, for one second, care about me?” He asked. It wasn’t even a plea, or begging, or anything other than bone-exhausting tiredness. He was just _done_ , done. He didn’t want to do this anymore.

“Just – please?” He asked her, “Not just say that you care because really, how can I take your word for it, Nancy?”

She looked taken back and a little hurt, and it stabbed in his chest but at least it felt like _something_. He didn’t need paper-thin bubblegum pop caring, he wanted the real her. He wanted the her that told him he was _bullshit, bullshit, bullshit._

 “That’s not fair, Steve.”

_A lot of stuff isn’t fair, Nancy._

_Life isn’t fair, Nancy._

_I hate you, Nancy. Please, love me, Nancy._

_Why wasn’t I good enough, Nancy._

“I know, okay? I know it’s not fair but that’s how I feel, okay.”

“Okay, Steve,” She said. “I do care about you, I told you.”

He supposed that she sounded understanding, that her big eyes expressed all the right emotions that he could fall into them, _wanted_ to but all he could hear was the condescending way that she _understood_ that he didn’t want to be drugged with sleeping pills. The way that she understood that he couldn’t just talk about Barb, or his parents, or anything. She understood but she didn’t _get_ it.

_You don’t love me, you never did._

“I know, Nancy, I know that you understand but I – really just want you to show it,” He tried to explain. He was tired of conceding, and giving it because it was easier than fighting. He was tired of accepting that other people were right when his feelings and opinions were _valid_.

“I know that you care, okay, just –“ He sighed. “Like, could you do that but – unconditionally because – because if you’re worried about me, I want it to be because of me and not because I might run the car off the road with your brother in it.”

“Can I not be worried about both of those?”

_No. No, you can’t, Nancy._

He sighed.

He didn’t say, _you don’t understand what I’m saying. You’re not understanding, Nancy, you just want to be right all the time._

He didn’t say _, my parents are gone and I’m supposed to be happy._

He didn’t say, _no one cares about me, no one cares about me crashing my car if I’m the only one in it. No one cares._

He didn’t ask, _why? What’s wrong with me? Why can’t anybody love me_?

He licked the ice cream off his spoon slowly and conceded, gave in, “Yeah, I guess so.”

“You know that I always cared about you, no matter what.”

 _Not when you cheated on me with Jonathan,_ He doesn’t say.

 _You didn’t care about me every time you told me that you loved me when you didn’t_ , He doesn’t say.

_Not when I was just bullshit, bullshit, bullshit in Tina’s fucking bathroom, and I was hurting but it didn’t matter because you were hurting more. Not when I didn’t want to talk and you did, so we talked and you got mad at me._

_You didn’t care when I gave you everything and you took it, and didn’t want it, and I’m drowning, Nancy. I’m drowning and you don’t even care._

_That wasn’t fair._

Nancy was hurting. He was hurting.

 _Shut up_.

She cared enough to point a gun in his face and threaten to pull the trigger. She cared enough to try to get him out of danger, to protect him. She cared as she held his hand through getting a new camera for Jonathan, to help him with his college essays and his history papers, to let him come over even after they broke up. She cared enough to let him spend Christmas with her family last year when his was out of town and to casually mention doing it again.

She didn’t care enough to stay. She didn’t care enough to _fix_ him.

_That’s not her job. No one can. Shut up._

“Steve?” She asked again and he knew that he spaced out on her _again_. God, he was tired. “We’re going to split the bill, you want in?”

Dustin had told him in the car that they’d cover his ice cream as a thank you for always driving them around. He smiled and he told her, “I’ll cover for everybody, don’t worry about it.”

He used to play little games with his credit cards, liking to push the limits that the bank had to find the ones his parents didn’t. He once took out over two thousand dollars in less than two weeks just to see what his parents would do about it, if they would even notice. They hadn’t.

He didn’t use his credit cards for over a month sophomore year, not even to buy food or pay a bill, and he didn’t answer any calls. He was virtually dead to them and it still took another two weeks for them to come home.

Nowadays, he just spent a shit ton of cash at the gas station, buying the space themed bookmarks that Dustin collected from the bookstore, or cleaning out the candy section at the grocery store.

She smiled, squeezing his hand over the table, “You’re going to be alright, Steve.

_As if something was wrong with him. As if he hasn’t always been like this._

His teeth gritted together at that condescending smile and know-it-all attitude, and he smiled before he spat on the table, “Only you seem to think that I’m not alright, Nancy. I’m only broken to you.”

It was a bold lie and one they both knew to be decidedly untrue but it cut the legs out from under her and he kind of wanted that. He wanted to see her play catch up this time, “I – Steve-“

“I know you do,” He told her, putting his elbows on the table to lean forward. He felt _awake_ for the first time in days. “It’s _wrong_ to drug people. Do you actually know that or did all that ‘investigating’ that you did with Jonathan make you forget that there are actually laws and shit, and like, basic human decency because I’m – _pissed._ ”

“I was just trying to help.”

“When did I ask for your help?” He snapped because he hadn’t. He was older than all of them and he was _fine_ , he was King fucking Steve Harrington. “Don’t you think you helped enough when you told me that you fucking hated me? Or – or when you cheated on me?”

She flushed pink because he was – loud. “Steve, calm down.”

“I am.”

“We had broken up.”

“No, you had _broken_ up and didn’t _tell_ me so why I was making sure that your dumbass brother and his stupid friends didn’t die, you were fucking around behind my back with Byers, and you know – I’m – I’m over it, I really am.” He told her, feeling very much like he _wasn’t_.

“I really am,” He repeated. “I want you to stop pretending like you have my best interest in mind, I want you to stop _helping_ me, okay? I’m not going to be how you ease your guilt, Nance.”

He leaned back, dropped his voice low, “Stop feeling guilty, you didn’t kill Barb. It was my fault, remember. You got her justice.”

Mentioning Barb to Nancy was verbal equivalent of slapping her and he thought that maybe he knew that, that it meant that she would hate him and would leave. If she couldn’t love him than he wanted her to just leave.

“I’m sorry you feel that way, Steve.”

She moved and he felt like he was choking on her perfume.

“I’ll stop trying to help you.”

“You can stop caring altogether,” He told her numbly, blinking slowly. “We both know you never did.”

When he opened his eyes, Dustin was asking him if he wanted to leave, like Steve was going to ruin his entire fucking night because of his own teenage bullshit angst. He told him that someone else could take him home and Steve just gritted his teeth.

Dustin was _his_ responsibility and that was a goddamn honor to him, he _loved_ that and he wasn’t going to let any asshole take him home, not fucking Jonathan – who couldn’t fucking keep track of his own brother.

 _That wasn’t not fair. Shut up. Life wasn’t fair._  

“No, I’m fine,” He said. “I just need another sundae. Would you tell a waiter?”

“No problem, Steve.”

 

“So, been thinking.”

Steve’s eyes slid open halfway from where they’d been closed for probably too long. He had not been sleeping, just – drifting in and out of an in between state. His body couldn’t decide if it wanted to give up, or sleep, or bawl his eyes out.

It left his mouth feeling dry and his mind stuttering, he yawned.

He decided that must have fallen asleep because this _had_ to be a dream. Otherwise, Hargrove was in his booth, sticking his gross fingers into his ice cream, “God, didn’t anybody ever teach you some manners?”

“Don’t fucking interrupt me, pretty boy. Where was I?”

He didn’t say anything, pausing like he was waiting for Steve to respond just so he knew he was listening.

Steve sighed. “You were thinking, a miracle in itself.”

“What did I _just_ say, shut the fuck up and listen, I’m not a bully,” Billy said and then paused again. He was looking at Steve like he was expecting some brilliant lightbulb moment, expecting Steve’s jaw to drop and him to exclaim _‘oh, that’s right’_ or _‘shit, you’ve been right this whole damn time.’_

Steve blinked.

He knew that. He had been explicitly saying that to everybody but nobody fucking listened.

“Okay.”

“I’m _not,”_ Billy emphasized. “I’m your friend.

_What?_

“I’m toughening you up for the real world out there,” Hargrove continued. “Someone needs to do that for a pretty boy like that and your mommy and daddy clearly don’t love you enough to do it. You’re welcome.”

Steve blinked. This was a dream.

He could say whatever he wanted.

_Fuck off. Fuck you._

“Okay,” He said slowly, licking his dry lips. “Okay, well, that – there’s a lot to unpack here.”

“Yeah, take your time. No one’s going to accuse you of being a quick one, Harrington.”

“Okay,” Steve repeated, nodded a little to himself, “Well, that’s complete bullshit. Relationships don’t work like that unless they’re _bad_ relationships and which case, I should be talking to like – a counselor or something.”

Steve sighed. It was a dream, it _wasn’t_ a dream. Nothing mattered.

What was he going to do, kill him this time?

 _Maybe_.

“Whatever has fucked you up enough to make you think that is how friendships work than I’m really sorry, Hargrove. We’re not friends, I keep telling you that.”

Billy looked unamused and shrugged before dragging Steve’s sundae over to him, “Fine, _whatever_. It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, and you’re just a pretty little fish with fuckin’ _guppies_ following you around.”

“That…makes no sense.”

“Look, I’m just trying to _help_ you,” Billy stressed the words out like Steve was slow and stupid. He left spaces in between his words, leaving time for Steve to, come to his senses or fall to his knees and thank him, or something. Who fucking knew how Billy Hargrove functioned.

He hadn’t been helped. “You make my life significantly more difficult than it needs to be, man.”

“Yeah, that’s the helping,” Billy rolled his eyes. “Keep up, rich kid. Can’t have everything handled to us, now can we? Sometimes you gotta work for things, I’m making you work.”

_Work for what?_

“Okay,” Steve sighed. “If I thank you will you leave?”

Billy grinned, tongue swiping ice cream from the corner of his lip, “Try me.”

Billy was in a rare good mood, like for the first time the urge to fight wasn’t beneath the surface of his skin but Steve wasn’t in a good mood. He was tired, and drowning, and was either going to fight or cry.

He gritted his teeth, “Actually, you know what, I want to apologize.”

“Yeah, do that, too.”

“If I’ve lead you on in any way,” Steve said in the same voice he let girls down easy with, “That made you believe that I do anything more than hate you, I am really sorry, because I truly fucking hate you, man. But hey, if you’re fishing for some positive feedback, you actually look surprisingly – nice.”

He did, actually.

Billy’s ugly ass hair was styled into curls almost like the night he beat Steve’s face into the fucking ground, and the blue of his open shirt brought out the blue out in his eyes. His leather jacket paired well with it and Steve was willing to bet that his jeans were going to be all the girls talked about. He looked effortlessly cool.

Billy’s lips quirked into a smirk, “Yeah, I always do.”

“You usually look like a dumpster fire.”

Billy stuck his foot against Steve’s knee under the table, trapping it between the sole of his boot and the polyvinyl seating. He pressed against it until Steve hissed and kept the applied pressure when he tsked, “Now, that was just rude. Apologize.”

Steve could feel his teeth fucking bend and he smiled, “I’m sorry.”

 _God_ , he wanted this fight, “I’m _so_ sorry that I’m the first person to tell you that you’ve got shitty hair and are a bad _friend_.”

“Okay, Harrington,” Billy laughed, alleviating some of the pressure but not all of it. Steve could get out of it if he wanted to. “Pick the hill you want to die on. You can’t have them all.”

“You sat down here to bother me, or are you that fucking delusional.”

“Hm, interesting question. Got a few of my own, are you sure that you’re not the freak?” He asked, crawling and burrowing under Steve’s skin, giving him the _heebie-jeebies._

He hooked his thumb back to where Nancy and Jonathan were most definitely watching them, “You pick a fight with the princess for her crown, I’m guessing.”

He wasn’t guessing and Steve hadn’t been quiet when talking to Nancy, he knew exactly what they were arguing about. He continued digging, gnawing into Steve’s skin, “And then there’s the matter that you’re not only spending your Friday night third-wheeling your ex-girlfriend but a bunch of nerdy kids.”

Steve doesn’t point out that Billy was also here so what the actual hell did that say about him. Instead, he shrugged and lied easily, “I’m part of a mentoring program.”

Which wasn’t true.

Which Billy _knew_ wasn’t true, and now he smelt blood because Billy Hargrove was just a fucking Demogorgon with a face. Steve was going to _die_ because of him one day.

His grin turned vicious, teeth sinking into his bottom lip because Steve lied about what he was doing with a bunch of children _again_. Because Steve couldn’t have just said that he was doing Dustin a favor because Dustin was a great kid and didn’t have a dad.

He couldn’t keep track of the lies he told people and now he was going to be eaten alive.

_What had sharp teeth and a thirst for blood. What was all mouth and extremely dangerous up close._

Billy Hargrove was a goddamn monster and he knew it.

Steve couldn’t outrun monsters forever.

He was destined to be killed by them.

“One day, you’re going to kill me,” Steve said, voice dropping into a distant cold, a lifelessness, as if his voice had curled up and died frostbitten. He was _so_ tired.

Billy leaned back at the sound of it, steeling his shoulders and narrowing his eyes. His tongue darted across his bottom lip again, “Yeah?”

Steve gave him a smile that held nothing more than teeth, “You cannot have a regime change without a sacrifice. You want to be king.”

That got a chilled kind of laugh from Billy, something – equally as cold and fucked up as Steve felt but entertained. It was like a spark was starting to light up Billy’s insides, Steve lit it. “You’re way too into this royalty thing than any sane person.”

“Haven’t you heard, I’m not sane.”

“Good thing, pretty boy,” Billy grinned like a shark, leaning back over the table. “Because I ain’t either. I’m going to take that crown of yours.”

He doesn’t even want it, doesn’t care because Billy Hargrove was the kind of guy that would burn himself to burn the world. He didn’t care about being King of Hawkins High, didn’t care about anything but taking away all that Steve had left.

He wanted to break more than just a plate.

He was going to _kill_ him because he _hated_ him and Steve didn’t even know why.

“You’ll have nothing left.”

“Haven’t you heard, I’m _rich_. I’ll just replace it.”

Billy ran his tongue over his lip again and Steve thought briefly that maybe he just needed Chapstick but dismissed it, he didn’t care.

“You’re completely fucking replaceable, aren’t ya, pretty boy?” He said finally. “Your chick already did that, was it a fucking upgrade to go to the freak?”

Steve narrowed his eyes, stealing his ice cream back, “Fuck off, Hargrove.”

“No, _no_ , I’m your _friend_ , remember, princess. I’m helping you,” He said, stealing the ice cream back. “Do you honestly think that any of those fuckers actually give a shit about you? Do you?”

He paused but Steve wasn’t going to give him an answer so he continued on with a laugh that held no humor, “They don’t, Harrington, they only care that you have cash and a car. A few years when they have driver’s licenses than they’ll drop your ass. Hell, only a few more months before the weather’s good enough that they can fucking walk, probably give up on you then.”

“That is-“ He cut off before Steve could even open his mouth, his tongue swiping across his lip yet again, “That is unless their legs get tired. What’s Stevie Harrington got to do but wait on a bunch of ungrateful brats.”

“Not all people are like that.” _Like you._

“Enough of them are,” He stated like he _knew_ anything. “You think any of them give a shit if you would drop dead right now? No, they’d be annoyed because when they look back on eighth grade formal or some shit, they’d have to pretend like they didn’t have a good time because you fucking died.”

“Snowball, not eighth grade formal.”

“ _Whatever_.”

Dustin would care, he’d be really heartbroken about it. _Because you couldn’t drive him anymore. Shut up._

His parents would, after their conference. Probably.

He sighed.

“I’m really sorry, Hargrove, “He told him. “I’m sorry that something went so wrong in your life to make you think that no one cares about you.”

He probably should have expected Billy to put all of his weight against his knee again but he doesn’t and it _hurt_. Billy was going to _kill_ him.

“Just telling you how it is, Harrington,“ He bit. “You know how much people care about a pretty face when there’s no substance behind it? They don’t. You’re fucking decoration, once you’ve served your purpose than you’re not useful anymore. They’ll put you out of mind and you’ll just be some fucker collecting dust in the back of their minds.”

His mom used to call him twice a week, sometimes three times, sometimes more. Sometimes she was drunk and wanted to complain about what his dad did that day to wrong her. Sometimes she would call and her voice would be caring, and she’d be sweet, and she’d tell him that she was proud of him. She’d tell him that he was so brave, and strong, and she’d ask all these probing questions about Barb and Will, and how did that made him feel.

He could always picture her writing the paragraphs for her next book in his head.

He wanted to scream.

She hadn’t called in _months_ , not since he told her that he didn’t really want to talk about that stuff. It was water under a great big bridge.

“I think my parents only had a kid for the source material.”

“Pray tell, Harrington, what the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

He just shrugged.

His mother told him once that the opposite of love was indifference, not hate.

He had been fourteen, and high school was going to be a whole new left for him to turn. He was going to try his hardest to get straight A’s, to get first string on the basketball team, to get into the advanced psychology program that the school offered through the community college just to impress her.

He sighed himself up for tutors, he practiced basketball for hours, he didn’t get into the college program but he got into honors psychology. He was going to be smart and they could tell their friends about their smart, athletic, _perfect_ son instead of just saying that he was handsome.

They could brag about  him and for a while, he was actually did really well.

He got all A’s and one B the first term, and they told him that it was good, that he needed to get up that grade in psych.

He had nodded and said, “I know, I’m sorry. I’ll do better.”

He had been reading in one of her books about social development in only children for a paper he was writing, convinced and half-crazed with the thought that if he cited her as a source in a paper than she’d – he didn’t really know what he _wanted_ from her. He thought that maybe she would hang it in her office or frame it, or say that she was fucking proud of it in a way where she meant it.

There was an example about a little boy in one of the chapters that was a little too attached to his toys, that lived a little too much inside of his head, that was behind developmentally than other first grades. It hit too fucking close to home.

Steve had been a kid of a big imagination that often ran rampant because he was bored and adults were busy, and it was easy to turn a big empty house into a fortress. His partner in crime, his sidekick, his best friend was a stuffed teddy bear that he traded Tommy’s older sister his Mr. Potato Head for.

The bear had a little top hat connected to his head and a fancy little jacket, and Steve called him Greg even though _he_ preferred to be called Dr. Greg Bear. He did after all go to med school and everything, _of course._

Steve took Greg everywhere for three years. They started pre-school together, kindergarten, first grade because Greg Bear was always a good friend and Steve had fun with him. Especially because half the time Tommy was being a jerk anyways and ditching him to play kickball in the mud even though his mom was going to be angry about it.

He was seven when he overheard his parents talking about taking Greg away so Steve beat them to the punch. He spent a week doing all of Greg’s favorite things and then sat him down, and told him that he was too old for bears now. Cool kids collected baseball cards and action figures anyways, and Steve was a cool kid.

He remembered going to his mom specifically to ask her to help him cross the street even if he typically did it himself anyways, telling her that he wanted to give Greg to the little boy that lived over there. She told him that he was very mature to do that, that she was proud of him, and he cried in his room that night.

He had been pissed that it was even mentioned in the book because it was _private_ , it was his and she just – just _took_ it and shared it with people under the guise of ‘ _Colin, age 7.’_ She told him, when he confronted her about it, that if she didn’t love him than she would be indifferent to his struggles and his progress, and never mention him at all.

He didn’t feel loved by her, not really, not anymore.

He didn’t feel the coldness of indifference either so all that was really left was hate.

His eyes stung and he blinked.

His mother had always wanted him to write books. He won some writing competition in second grade with a short story about a hamster named Trevor that went on a crazy six-paged adventure. It was the only thing that he had ever shown any real skill in being good at, or so his father casually mentioned every time his mother brought it up to fill his quota of making Steve feel like shit.

God, he hated them.

He supposed that he could set the scene, he could break this down for the likes of Billy Hargrove right now, “I’m done with this, okay? Can we just be done here?”

Billy’s foot stayed pressed against his knee and he looked all the world like he was going to say ‘ _no_ ’, say _‘this is why no one fucking likes you,’_ say, _‘pretty boy.’_

Then the foot was gone and Billy was shoving his sundae off the table, sneering, “You’re a fucking buzzkill, Harrington. Don’t bother showing your face at Darlene’s party tonight.”

Steve didn’t even know that Darlene was having a party.

Darlene Wallace had a pool, “I won’t.”

 

 

“That you, Harrington, or am I dreaming?”

There was sometimes this _buzz_ that echoed inside his ears, like a distant thumping of a giant never coming closer but never leaving so Steve could _never_ relax. It buzzed at a different frequency than the alcohol in his system, as the music around him, and thumped off-beat of the thumping feet of a dancing student body. Steve weaved through the crowd.

He smiled and made promises to meet up later, and he drank a lot and fast.

There were less people when he broke free of the crowd, onto the back porch, and even less people as he continued farther into the yard.

He could breathe for a collective second.

He could relax with alcohol coaxing his body into it.

Inner peace was just beyond his fingertips, he could just reach it and –

He wanted to _scream_.

_Go away. God._

“You’re really asking me to knock some sense into that thick goddamn skull, aren’t ya, pretty boy?” Billy’s voice filtered over his shoulder. “Didn’t I tell you that I didn’t want to see your fucking face here tonight?”

Steve hummed, downing the rest of his drink as Billy approached with the stench of marijuana and booze. He didn’t turn around just yet, letting his eyes slide close.

He breathed tainted air.

He felt like he was fighting demo-dogs in the junk yard, hopelessly outnumbered. He felt like dropping his guard and accepting the inevitable.

“You listening to me or has all of that hairspray finally melt the last of your brain cells?”

He sighed.

He laughed. He sounded broken.

“You don’t scare me.”

“Then you’re as stupid as I thought you were.”

“You’re probably next, you know,” He hummed, felling the split in his lip strain and pull apart as his grin grew to a manic level. He could feel the whole universe buzzing inside of him as the party raged on inside the house. “It’ll be you.”

A rough hand spun his around and Billy was in his face, “What the fuck are you ever talking about, Harrington?”

“It’s the B’s,” He explained, laughter fading to something pathetic, drawling out the end of the letter into a buzzing sound that matched the buzz in his ears. His hair was wild as he ran his fingers through it and his eyes wide as Billy circled around him, like a shark. Like a demo-dog.

He looked different than he had at the diner, he looked deadly. There was something like a cut in his lip, something like the start of a bruise on his cheek, and an unbridled fire in his eyes, “What happened to you?”

“What happened to _you_ , King Steve?”

Steve laughed, he couldn’t stop laughing at this – this lame attempt at being intimidating. He almost welcomed having his ass beaten into the ground but he would not be afraid. He spat at his feet, “I’ve _seen_ monsters before.”

“Sure, Harrington. Monsters.”

Billy’s hand shot out in connection with Steve’s shoulder and he tripped forward, shoulder scrapping painfully against the uneven stone of the backwall but he didn’t care. He didn’t stay there, moving so not to be trapped against it.

It was the pool that he truly cared about. He didn’t want to go into the pool.

He didn’t even want to be this close to it.

“They’ve only taken the B’s,” He noted, taking the joint laxed between Billy’s lips and taking a hit of it. He let the smoke settle into his lungs before breathing out, “You’ve got to be careful, man.”

“I’m touched by your concern,” Billy said flatly.

It felt as if the wall was falling over onto him and the pool’s water was going to raise and seep into his shoes, and pull him under it. It felt as if the world was shuddering and breaking apart.

He wondered if Billy could feel it as well.

He took another hit off the joint and hoped the shaking in his hands was a result of the cold. He didn’t feel any better.

Parties used to make him feel _great_ , like he was on top of the world, and wasn’t alone, and _cool_. He hated this. He wanted to leave.

Nancy couldn’t love him and neither could anybody else.

“What is this about, Harrington?”

“You followed me out here, Hargrove, and you sat at my booth, not the – not the other way around,” He muttered, finding a half-finished beer among the littered bottles out here. He sipped from it and narrowed his eyes, “Do you – you’re not like, a spy, right?”

“I think you’re high enough.”

“Benny.”

“What?”

“Benny was the first,” Steve said. “Benny Hammond, he owned Benny’s Burgers, he died first. Then Barb went missing, and _died,_ and then – then Bob died and you – you’re mixed up in all of this shit, too. By association, and _fuck_ , like I was.

“What are you _talking_ about?”

“Can’t. They’ll take me. The spies.” Steve stopped and scrubbed his eyes, joint worryingly close to burning his face if Billy was so inclined to worry about it. “God, Reagan is going to kill me.”

Billy’s response was drowned out and cut off by the party abruptly breaking up and people scattering with urgency through the yard. It meant one of two things. Darlene had said that her parents weren’t due back for another two days so, _cops_.

“Shit.”

“Get rid of the joint, Harrington.”

“There are so many things that can kill you, you know,” He muttered. “I gotta protect them, they’re just kids. Dumbass kids that think they’re invincible, and they’re _not_.”

“Give _me_ the joint, Harrington,” Billy growled, reaching for it and missing. “We have to get out of here, there are cops.”

“She’s your sister, man. You have to look out for her and – and _I_ have to look out for them.”

“Harrington – fine,” Billy turned to leave and nearly walked into a shiny badge. “ _Fuck.”_

A hand clamped down on his shoulder and he heard Steve breathe out behind him, “Chief Hopper.”

“Kid.”

It wasn’t addressed to Billy but it had all the same tired disappointment as if it was. Hopper’s eyes never wavered from Billy’s and he felt a coldness slip into his gut as Steve started to pace. They were fucked.

“What’s this, Harrington?”

“It’s – it’s after eight-one-fucking-five, Hops, “Steve muttered, jabbing an accusing finger at him like he had some damn death wish. Billy was going to fucking murder him. “It’s – _why_ are you here? You’re supposed to be home, you _need_ to be home.”

“Noise complaint, kid. Are you high right now?”

“I don’t know, maybe.”

Billy shot Steve a look that would have killed him on the spot if it he had anything to lose but he didn’t so he ignored it searing into his face. He stared at Hopper instead and Hopper stared back.

Whatever invisible game that they were playing ended and Steve wasn’t really sure if Hopper actually won it. He conceded like he always conceded, because it was _easy_ to concede, and sat a distance away on the sidewalk like Hopper told him to.

Billy was still glaring a hole into his face from where he was sitting beside him. It wasn’t like they were going to jail.

Steve signed, he was supposed to say something, “That wasn’t a great party. It kind of sucked.”  

“I’m going to fucking kill you, Harrington.”

“Okay.”

“It’s not a goddamn joke,” He hissed at him like they weren’t just waiting here for Hopper to drive them home. “I’m going to fucking murder you.”

“I heard you.”

Hopper must not be paying attention to them because Billy curled his fist into Steve’s hair, yanking his head back so that they were eye to eye. Steve could see the rage behind blue eyes, burning so bright and hot, and deadly.

His mouth curled into a sneer but he didn’t say anything, tightened the grip in Steve’s hair before slamming his head down against his knee. Steve couldn’t suppress the surprise he felt, his nose aching with the impact and his eyes watered.

Billy let go of his hair and Steve wiped away blood from his nose, “Thanks.”

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Billy sure. “I’m going to fucking _kill_ you the next time I see you.”

_I know._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like this chapter more than any highlights that Steve really doesn't know what he wants because nothing is that 'cure-all' that he's really looking for. So, he's lashing out particularly against Nancy. 
> 
> Thanks, as always, for all the comments and feedback.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forewarning: I personally feel like there's a more depressing tonal shift this chapter.

Billy Hargrove was a waking nightmare.

He was _more_ than that, _worse_ than that.

He was everywhere.

It was so incredibly fitting – almost _hilariously_ fitting – that the first time Steve ever even talked to the guy was on one of the worst nights of his entire goddamn existence. How else was it going to go? How else should he have been confronted by the monster that was going to one day kill him?

It _had_ to be that night.

Billy Hargrove was could sniff out blood and broken hearts, and he probably fucking _knew_ that it had to be then. He was opportunistic at best, savage _always_ , the goddamn lynchpin to collapse Steve’s whole life.

It had to be that night because Nancy Wheeler got trashed, and soaked in punch, and called him a murderer, told him that she never loved him, that he was _bullshit, bullshit, bullshit._

And of course, she was right.

Of course, monsters were back in Hawkins almost the next fucking _week_.

Of course, it was _Halloween_.

Billy Hargrove was Halloween come to life and not the _fun_ Halloween, not the candy and the costumes, and pumpkins, and sex in the backseat of his car while Monster Mash played on the radio. He was the horror slasher kind.

He was Michael Myers in the flesh.

He was unstoppable and dangerous, unbeatable, a cold and calculated crescendo of a musical score and he would always win. And Steve would lose, and he’d die. He doesn’t even make it to the end.

He was the _boyfriend._ The _babysitter._

Destined to fucking die bloody and useless.

He blinked his eyes open to wood paneling.

And a hangover, _fuck_.

He groaned. He was _such_ an idiot.

There had been an out. All he had to do was take it, but he dropped the ball like it was championship finals.

Hopper had shuffled both him and Billy into the back of his truck – not even the front, like they weren’t old enough or mature enough, or deserve to sit up front enough. He dropped Billy off first, a whole two blocks away from his front door because Billy said that he lived there even though Steve knew he fucking didn’t.

Hopper had asked him, “What’s your address, kid?”

As if Steve wasn’t going to know that he already knew it because _everybody_ knew where the Harringtons lived, like they weren’t the biggest house in town and one of three with a goddamn pool. Like Hopper didn’t drop his ass off there after the world almost ended.

Steve sighed, he rattled off the address and stared out the window.

“Are your parents home?”

All Steve had to do was say, _‘Yes.’_

Say, _‘Who would leave their only child alone in a town where two kids have went missing or died in the last year?’_ Say, _‘You already fucking know that they’re not, you know that no one fucking cares about me.’_ Say, _‘I’m going to die and no one is going to give a damn about it so why are you pretending?’_

But he said, “No.”

He just had to lie but he was stupid, and drunk, and a little high. He was broken, and dumb, and an idiot. Hopper just sighed.

Enough people in his life had told him that he was never going to be more than a pretty face – _You’re an idiot, Steve Harrington. He’s dumb, I told you. You’re fucking decoration. I’ll stop trying to help you._

 _I’m going to fucking kill you, Harrington_.

The conclusion wasn’t one that took a lot of effort to jump to when he felt as if the personification of his foretold death had curled and died in his mouth. Steve was a problem but he wasn’t _Hopper’s_ problem so Steve didn’t really understand why he took it upon himself to deal with it.

Steve was going to die and that wasn’t Hopper’s problem either. He was going to die and it was an all-consuming conclusion. It manifested in a physical uncomfortableness.

He was going to die because Billy Hargrove said that he was. Billy Hargrove was going to kill him the next time he saw him.

 _God_ , did he even actually care?”

_You want this. You’ve always wanted this._

_It’s an out to a life that is too fucking hard to live anymore, you don’t have to do anything but take it._

_Shut up._

His mouth tasted dry and his eyes hurt, there was an achy hollowness to his chest like the nightmares had finally carved him out and he just couldn’t remember when it happened. He didn’t feel rested, he wasn’t even sure if he ever _slept_ anymore.

Maybe he was just falling through time, falling through scenery.

That was how people wrote books and movies, wasn’t it? _Something, something, something,_ then quick transition and more exciting passing events, a montage, and everything else that was not important to the plot was never mentioned.

He tried to shake his head but it hurt.

 _He_ wasn’t important, he would die off screen. He’d die in a passing remark, a sentence. A sentence _fragment._

He was the footnote to someone else’s story, he was an idiot.

He was hungover. _Damn it._

Maybe Billy had already killed him and this was his purgatory, his hell.

Steve wasn’t religious, his family only ever went to church for their social image and to appease his grandmother for inheritance, and he wasn’t even sure if he believed there was a hell. He hadn’t believed that there were tunnels that were alive or monsters without faces either so, he didn’t rule out the possibility of there being anything anymore.

If there was a hell, Steve was pretty sure that his would be the constant pull of tiredness that was dragging him _through_ the goddamn floor and the never knowing notion of if he actually slept. Maybe hell was what happened when sleep alluded you for too long and that was why his grandmother was always on him about going to sleep on time, or maybe hell was just what you were left with after you burnt all your bridges and failed to fight monsters.

If Hell was a place you carried with you than he was carrying Hawkins like fucking Atlas carried the world. It was _crushing_.

He didn’t ask for this. He didn’t want this.

“I’m babysitting you.”

_What?_

“I’m not even doing anything,” Steve muttered, breath catching and scrapping up his throat because he hadn’t even heard anybody approach him, hadn’t felt all-to-knowing eyes on him.

He pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets and told himself to fucking focus on something other than the fact that his eyelids felt like they were made of sandpaper.

Sandpaper eyelids were a concoction of a very special place in Hell, Steve was sure of that. If Hell existed, if Hell wasn’t Hawkins.

Maybe he was just sick.

 _Maybe you’re just weak._ Shut up.

He sighed. He didn’t hide his exhaustion, “Hi, El.”

“Hi,” She said back. “You sound like a baby.”

It probably wasn’t a smart thing to tell the chief of police’s mind powered thirteen year old daughter to fuck off, right? Probably not.

He _could_ do it anyways.

_No one’s going to accuse you of being a quick one, Harrington._

“Have you ever even _seen_ a baby before?” He asked instead, sliding his eyes over to her. He didn’t know if it was as mean spirited as it felt but El just shrugged so, whatever. “They don’t sound like me.”

She looked away, eyes flickering over to Hopper banging cabinets open in the kitchen and then back to Steve, “He is angry.”

Steve kind of liked her better when she was wearing leather, and too much eyeliner, and throwing demo-dogs through windows like a total badass. He doesn’t like this _child_ in front of him, doesn’t like her curly bedhead hair, the oversized t-shirt dwarfing her. He was uncomfortable by how young, and innocent, and naively open her eyes were.

She saved the world and she looked _ten_.

He swallowed down the taste of nausea and tried to smile, “He’s pissed off at me. Yeah, I know.”

Steve was pretty sure that all the noise that Hopper was making while he stomped around the place wasn’t actually going to kill him but it certainly felt like he was making a valiant effort to do so. His head ached and his stomach rolled as he pushed himself up from the couch.

He was reminded painfully that maybe he should’ve digested something other than vinegar, ice cream, and vodka yesterday.

El opened her mouth but closed it when Hopper told her, harsher than Steve thought was truly necessary but how was he supposed to know how pretend dads talked to their fake daughters, “Hey, no shoes on than no Byers’ house. I’m leaving in ten.”

She rolled her eyes and gave Steve a look that he was supposed to interpreter but didn’t. Then she was gone, leaving the room with a door slamming shut without it ever being touched.

Steve had never been claustrophobic.

He had liked small spaces as a kid, in fact.

He used to hide all the time in the smallest spaces he could squeeze into and make his nannies and babysitters, and sometimes his mom, find him. Before he was ever King Steve, he had been the Hide and Seek champion of the park down the block from Tommy’s.

He would hide so well that Tommy’s sister Jenny never found him when she babysat, that no one ever did. He was practically invisible when wedged between the bedframe and the wall in the master bedroom, or in the little crawlspace in the first floor guest room. He hid so well that one time, she freaked out and called the cops when she couldn’t find him.

He has _never_ been claustrophobic but then the Upside Down happened, and tunnels _breathed_ on him, and he hated it all so much but he learned to deal with it. He adapted to it. He showered with the door wide open and he didn’t go into the basement anymore.

And it was fine, mostly, but when Hopper sat down heavy on the table in front of him, he suddenly felt as if the cabin was closing in on him. He felt like there was a fist shoved just beneath his rib cage, and that it was twisting, and twisting, and twisting, and wasn’t going to stop until he was completely inside out.

Billy was going to kill him, he made his peace with that.

He embraced it, he accepted it.

He _wanted_ it. He _didn’t_.

It didn’t matter what he wanted. It never fucking mattered.

He didn’t want Billy to have the satisfaction of dealing the last deadly blow, of winning whatever this thing was between them, or of stealing his crown. He could always take that from him.

He could do it himself, do it _better_. Make it cool.

He could end it in all the ways that he wanted to go out, which was decidedly not to be beaten bloody into a pulp.

He could make suicide look cool.

 _Jesus_. Steve rolled his eyes. _Did he ever actually listen to himself speak? What a fucking stupid thing to think._

Life wasn’t a movie, or a book, or a play where everybody dies but it was okay because they did it _nicely_. Things didn’t wrap up with a pretty bow on top in real life because real life _sucked_ , and people sucked, and Steve couldn’t do _anything_ without looking like a fucking idiot.

This was why everybody called him dumb. This was why he needed to marry a smart girl, and work for his dad, and let other people run his life until the day he fucking died. He was just a pretty goddamn face and cool hair, and the less he slept, the less he was even going to be that.

Hopper narrowed his eyes at him, mouth curling down in an annoyed frown because he had been _talking_ and Steve hadn’t been listening. Steve just rolled his eyes, and he thought it was at him because Hopper _hated_ him.

He hated him because he was a bad influence, and an idiot, and Steve basically told his sorta/kinda girlfriend’s son last year that his little brother deserved to die. Because Steve was an _asshole_.

Maybe he needed to die and then everybody could be better, and happier. Maybe he needed-

“I think I need help.”

He _knew_ that he needed help, actually.

He was drowning and suffocating above water, and it felt too easy to just let the world devour him. Billy Hargrove was fucking Michael Myers, and Freddie Kruger, and a Demogorgon that escaped the Upside Down. He was haunting his waking and sleeping moments, and maybe Steve did deserve this but he was sorry. He had said sorry, and tried to be better, and he was _tired_.

He was so fucking tired.

Billy was _evil_ and he was going to _kill_ him.

God, sometimes – sometimes, Steve hoped that he _did_.

They’d write on his tombstone that he was Hawkins’ fallen king that failed to reach any potential, was a fucking loser babysitter for kids who didn’t even need him, that he was _bullied_. How fucking tragic.

He remembered thinking that it was so sad that more people hadn’t come to Barb’s funeral. He remembered thinking how fucked up it was that no one had even really cared that she went missing, how _he_ hadn’t really cared.

Barb died with _one_ real friend and two parents that loved her, and Steve – was realizing with a crushing despair that his parents probably wouldn’t even come to his funeral. God, they’d be so _inconvenienced._  

He hated this life so much, he hated it.

He didn’t understand anything anymore. His life had been so simple – he was going to graduate, he was going to work for his dad, he was going to marry Nancy Wheeler.

He didn’t understand why he wasn’t happy when it was literally the easiest thing in the whole world.

His mom always said that anger too effort, it was a fire that needed constant fanning and it was always going to be easier to just let go. Feeling sorry for yourself was draining because it was hard to do, because life was hopeful, and bright, and there was always _something._

He should be grateful was what his father always told him. His parents worked hard for him. Yeah, it wasn’t ideal that they were away from home so much but they were doing it for him. They were traveling the world so he could have everything he wanted, they were missing his birthday and Christmas so he could afford to go to college. They were abandoning him because they loved him.

His life was perfect and he should be happy because some kids had it worse. Some parents hit their kids, some parents _hated_ their kids, and Steve _knew_ that.

It wasn’t fair that he wasn’t happy because he didn’t wanted to be unhappy. It wasn’t his fault, he was _trying_.

“So, what’s the problem, kid?”

 _Me_.

His shoulders curled in and he didn’t say, _I ruin everything._

He didn’t say _, everybody hates me._

He didn’t say, _there are spies everywhere._

He didn’t say, _Billy Hargrove is going to kill me and nobody will fucking care. Why do you care?_

It was his job to pretend to care.

He was off duty but Steve was pretty sure that cops were like doctors and therapists. They had some oath or pledge that said that they were never really off duty and that they had to help people regardless of if they were working or not, if they wanted to or not.

“I-“ He stopped, breathing out something that sounded deflated, like a laugh without any air. “I just – I feel like I need a break sometimes.”

He felt like he _was_ breaking. He was collapsing under the weight of his own stress, and bitterness, and something heavy and akin to intense paranoia – though Hopper shoved a shotgun into people’s face when they didn’t use a secret knock so maybe the paranoia was a good thing. Maybe all of this shit wasn’t something _wrong_ with him but completely and total warranted.

Maybe, it was both.

Everything was becoming too much for him.

“Everything is just too much right now,” He said. “That was what last night was about, I just needed a break.”

Hopper nodded understandingly.

Steve felt like bawling his eyes out but Hopper had a dead daughter.

He could still remember being ten years old and his mom actually being home, hearing her in the kitchen with her friends talking over coffee about that poor police officer and his sick daughter. He remembered hearing her talk about that sad police officer and his dead daughter.

He remembered his mom hugging him a lot and his dad playing basketball with him in the driveway after he overheard them. He picked out flowers with his mother, he remembered it because he had _a lot_ of opinions on flowers as a kid, and he’d been so happy that she was spending her day with him even though her publishing deadlines were approaching.

It hit him hard and cruel, and sudden because Hopper didn’t have a daughter anymore and all Steve could think about was – how much he _loved_ that time of his life. His parents stayed home for months and paid attention to him. They went to his basketball games and his swim meets, took him to the zoo, and got him out of school for milkshakes and burgers.

Hopper lost his daughter and he didn’t even have a wife anymore, and Steve had the fucking _audacity_ to enjoy himself during the worst days of his life.

Hopper’s life was harder. His life _sucked_ and Steve wasn’t allowed to fucking complain about shit to people who had it worse.

El literally saved the world and was barely allowed to leave a cabin in the middle of nowhere, and Steve was _complaining._

He was such an ungrateful son of a bitch. He wasn’t – _God_.

He couldn’t – how could he tell _them_ , of all people, that he was having trouble sleeping, and breathing, and living like a functional human being because of shit they all saw. He didn’t even see half of what they saw and he was fucked up beyond repair because of it.

“It’s nothing, really. It’s not a big deal.”

“Why don’t you tell me what it is and I’ll decide how big of a deal it is?”

“I – why?”

Hopper shrugged and asked, “Why not?”

 _Why not_?

Steve had a hundred of _why not’s_. He had millions of them – _I’m not being bullied, I’m not weak, I’m not broken, I just -_  

He wanted so badly for someone, wanted anybody, to tell him how to fix this – it really wasn’t as bad as being a science experiment or dead kids, or anything like that so maybe…

Maybe Hopper could help, right? He did help save the world, after all.

“I –“ He laughed, he couldn’t help it. If he didn’t laugh than he might cry, and he really didn’t want to do that. “It’s a lot to, uh – it’s just a lot.”

“Come on, kid, lay it out then.”

Steve breathed and he ran his hand through his hair, feeling the days that he went without washing it and felt so much worse because of it. He felt dirty all over, greasy and oily, as he rubbed his hand on his pant leg. He opened his mouth but closed it when El’s bedroom door open. Oh.

_Oh, yeah._

“Look, uh, before we do anything of this, can I – get my car?” He asked, “I’m pretty sure that I let it part in a no parking zone nearly Darlene’s house and you did tell El that you’d take her to the Byers, and like, if my car gets towed I would – literally kill myself, you know?”

That joke didn’t land so much as shatter against the floor.

“…Yeah, kid.”

“And I need to shower, at my own house,” He added. “So, we can – I’ll come back here, if that’s okay, and we can talk. In like, an hour.”

Hopper looked reluctant to agree but he drove Steve out to his car before leaving to take El to hang out with her friends. Steve mumbled his thanks and got in his car.

He put the phone back on the hook when he got home, ignored the messages on the answering machine, and went to shower. He kept the door wide open and listened to Billy Joel croon from the radio in his bedroom.

His eyes stung from being open but he had convinced himself a long time ago that if he closed them than the Upside Down would close in around him, or the water would turn to black sludge, or Billy Hargrove would be there.

Barb died in his backyard, paranoia was warranted.

No one ever worried about the fucking portal to a goddamn hell dimension that was apparently in his backyard. No one even cared that it swallowed people whole and killed them, and _lived outside his bedroom_.

Byers took pictures into his bedroom window and no one even cared.

Steve snapped himself out of spiraling thoughts, shutting the water off.

He felt better after showering, after fixing his hair and it actually looking good, and he was – he was going to get help, get fixed, everything was going to _okay_. He was going to be happy again.

There was a bounce to his step that hadn’t been there in weeks as he went down the stairs. He grabbed his keys and his wallet, and paused right before he turned the doorknob to leave. There was something cold and tickling brushing against the back of his mind. He couldn’t quite place it, there was – something.

Then he remembered.

And he sighed, and rolled his eyes. He almost said, ‘ _fuck it,’_ almost said, _‘fuck you’_ but instead, he turned on his heels. He walked into the garage, he looked around and gave up, and went to the hardware store to buy paint rollers. He drove to the Wheeler’s house afterwards.

He sighed, he got out of the car.

_Love you. Sorry. What the hell am I sorry for?_

_You still have the bat? The one with the nails._  

The driveway was empty but that didn’t say much because Mike was probably at the Byers’ house and someone had to drive him there. Nancy never said what time she was going to paint sets for theater just that she was.

There was probably no one there.

Or worse, _Ted_ but Steve could deal with that.

He’d just knock and if no one answered than he’d leave the paint rollers by the door with a note about being late. There was almost a normalcy to that, something that was very _Steve Harrington-esque_ to that. He was always making things up by letting people down.

It was his shtick, his – “Oh, excuse me.”

There was a hand on his arm and Steve froze, his chest seizing up for one terrifying moment. He couldn’t breathe. He blinked hard, he tried to smile, “Y-yeah?”

He did not know this woman. He _knew_ everybody in this neighborhood.

Her black hair was slicked back into a tight bun and her clothes hidden beneath a rain coat, and he couldn’t move his arm from under her gloved hand. _There are no fingerprints with gloves_.

She offered him a smile that said ‘ _gotcha,’_ that said _‘no one will know you’re missing,’_ that said _‘you thought you could talk and nothing would happened to you.’_

_You’re an idiot, Steve Harrington._

He blinked once. Slowly, twice.

He did not know this woman that was touching his arm and it felt as if the whole appendage had been immobilized. He couldn’t move. There, in the corner of his eye, was a van from the power company parked down the street and spies _always_ had power company vans.

_Shit, shit, shit, shit._

Her smile turned down into a frown and her eyebrows pulled together because she was saying something and Steve wasn’t listening, _again_.

Her fingers moved down to tap against his elbow, “Are you okay?”

_No. I don’t want to die._

_I didn’t say anything. I don’t know anything._

_I’m going to be sick._

_I’m sorry._

“I’m fine,” He said numbly. “I – what did you say?”

“I said that you can’t park there, they’re running new power lines up the whole block.”

_To spy on the Wheelers? To tap their phone lines._

They probably did the same to his. Fuck.

“You have to move your car, kid.”

“I-“ _need you to stop touching, need you to leave me alone, don’t hurt me, I won’t say anything to anybody._ “I’m just – dropping something off. I won’t be more than a- minute, at most. It’s just paint rollers for theater club.”

_Please, don’t hurt me._

She gave him a look that he couldn’t read in the blinding panic building inside of him and she smiled, _‘You thought you were safe.’_

“I suppose that’s alright, honey, you should hurry.”

He was a fucking idiot, he was suffocating. He was going to be killed by government spies. He just – he jerked his arm out of her light hold and forced his feet to walk evenly up to the Wheeler’s front door.

The world hated him and it wanted him to _die_ , it was a proven fact because when he looked behind him, the woman was gone and when the door opened, it was Nancy. Everything that he had planned to say to Mr. Wheeler died in his mouth.

He wanted to vomit.

“Hey.”

Her hair looked messy like she hadn’t gotten ready for the day, like she wasn’t planning on it, “Hey, Steve.”

“Uh, look, I’ve been thinking -“ _Love you. Sorry._ “- Just, I’m sorry.”

_There are spies in your neighborhood and I think they’re going to kill me._

_I was going to talk and they know._

_Would you even miss me if I died?_

He sighed and ran his hand through his damp hair, feeling the hairspray breaking its hold, “I – you were right. You were right, I wasn’t being fair and I – it’s just that I haven’t slept well and I was stressed out, and that’s really no excuse for going off like I did yesterday.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“…yeah,” He nodded, gnawing where his lip hadn’t quite healed completely. “So, I’m sorry.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, leaning against the doorframe. She looked wholeheartedly unimpressed with him, “You’re always sorry, Steve.”

 _Wow._ Okay.

_Fuck you, Nancy Wheeler._

“It’s not good enough anymore,” She told him. “You need to _think_ before you – lash out like that, Steve. The way you acted yesterday was the same overreacting that lead to you breaking Jonathan’s camera, and-“

_Not everything is about Jonathan. Not everything is about you._

_I was talking about me yesterday, okay?_

“-what lead to you picking a fight with him. You’re just hurting the relationships that you have in your life and its self-“

“Okay, wow.”

“Steve-“

“No, Nancy, how much am I paying for this bullshit therapy session?” He asked, and she looked taken back _again_ , as if he did not just _tell_ her yesterday that he didn’t need any of this fake caring garbage. “Jesus, do you actually listen to me when I talk? I said I was sorry, I shouldn’t have yelled at you. I don’t take back any of what I said.”

Her jaw jutted out like it did when she was displeased, making her mouth fall into a pout. It surprised him how that didn’t make him feel anything at all. He felt nothing but the overwhelming urge to bawl his eyes out, which he always felt nowadays.

“Look, Nance, I just came here because I told you that I’d help you paint some sets today,” He said, holding out the back of paint rollers.

Her lips parted and her eyes widened a fraction because she’d forgotten that she asked him. She didn’t actually want his help because she thought he was _useless,_ and _broken,_ and _dumb._

What did spies want with a moron anyways?

“I forgot that I have this -  business thing with my parents so I can’t make it,” He said like everybody didn’t know that his parents barely existed in this town. “So, like, here are the rollers.”

“Okay.”

He sighed, rubbing at his eyes, “And, can I use your phone?”

He doesn’t know why she bothered to say yes. It was clear to him that she’d rather say, _‘fuck you’,_ or _‘I hate you, Steve Harrington’_ or _‘I can’t wait for Billy to fucking murder you, Steve.’_

But she sighed and she lead him into the kitchen, and she told him as he dialed the number, “You shouldn’t burn all your bridges, Steve. It gets pretty lonely that way.”

He ignored her.

He dialed Hopper’s number and turned his back to her, speaking lowly into the phone because she wasn’t going to give him privacy. She hated him and didn’t want him in her house, she wanted her virginity and her best friend back, and he was _tired_. So fucking tired of everything.

“Hey Hopper.” There were spies listening in, and Nancy listening in, and he didn’t care because it felt _crushing_ just to talk. “So, uh. I know I said that I wanted to talk earlier but, uh… I was just, you know, being a dumb teenager and something came up so I can’t actually do that. Sorry.”

He didn’t wait for a response, didn’t need to hear Hopper being disappointed in him too. He closed his eyes for a moment after he hung up, feeling his eyes burn behind his eyelids.

He felt like crying. He felt like driving his car off the road.

Who would even care if he did?

“Thanks, Nance.”

 

The messages on the answering machine said: _Hello, this is Levi Carmichael. I am calling for James Harring-“_

_Steve! I’ve called like six times already this morning. Answer the phone!_

_Steve, this is call seven. Are you still asleep? Gagh, everybody is going to Will’s to watch Star Wars on tape and I’m going to be a total loser if YOU. DON’T. PICK. UP. THE. PHONE._

_Steve, don’t worry about it. Mike’s mom said she’d pick me up._

_Steve, I know I said not to worry about it but it’s kind of freaking me out that you’re not answering your phone. You never go anywhere so-_

_Harrington, it’s Hopper. Pick up the damn phone and call me back._

He deleted all the messages.

He sighed.

He made sure the front door was locked and dragged his feet to his room, and he ignored every phone call, every knock at the door. He ignored everything because the only thing easier than giving in was giving up.

_Stevie, it’s Mama. The conference went well. I’ve been asked to speak at another so it will be some time before we’re home again. Your father will call you later with the details, once we have them._

Come Monday morning, he was three-fourths on the way to believing that he was living in an actual hell. He was half convinced that when he swam too far out at sea and was too tired to swim back, that he drowned instead of being rescued.

His parents were never home because their son was a ghost. Nancy couldn’t love him because you couldn’t love the dead the way you did the living. No one could _hear_ him because he wasn’t even there.

He would die today and nothing would change. You cannot kill the dead.

He functioned on auto-pilot that morning. He fixed his hair, he got dressed, he ate a last meal of Lucky Charms before driving to the Hendersons.

Dustin tapped on the passenger window until Steve rolled it down, “Where have you been all weekend?”

Steve just shrugged, “Around.”

“I called like a hundred times.”

_I know._

“I think my phonelines might be down,” He lied, _I can’t talk on the phone, the spies will know. I took the phone off the hook. I’m dying today and I’m already dead._ “They’re running new lines all over the town.”

“Oh, I think they did that to Mike’s street,” Dustin nodded, leaning in through the window instead of just getting in.  He put eight new Star Trek Band-Aids into the glove compartment.

Steve knew that there was a difference between Star Trek and Star Wars but he couldn’t, for the life of him, get his fuzzy sleepy mind to remember what that difference was.

One of them was about hope and was terrible. The other one was a dumb space soap opera were someone kissed their sister and Steve wasn’t allowed to call Days of our Lives in space because it pissed off nerdy middle schoolers. He wasn’t in the mood to ask which was which.

Dustin leaned in his window and closed the compartment with a slam, telling Steve with a gentle smile and a soft voice like he would break if he raised it any higher, “I think I’m going to bike to school today, Steve.”

It was thirty-six degrees outside. There was a forty percent chance of frozen rain. No one in their right mind would chose a bike over a car.

They were already getting tired of him.

They hated him.

Billy was right.

Steve forced his mouth into a smile, “That sounds like a plan, kid.”

 

He wasn’t dead yet because they were swimming in gym class.

The _only_ reason that Steve wasn’t beaten to death, half-dressed on the locker room floor was because he was late to first period, and skipped history, and because Billy forgot to bring swim shorts. Steve had an extra pair and he offered them to him so he didn’t have to swim in his underwear.

So, it was _fine_.

Everything was fine because Billy wasn’t going to kill him today and Steve wasn’t afraid of pools or water just – “I’m adverse to getting my hair wet in the middle of the day.”

“There’s a dumbass plaque over there that name you the first-place champion in the freestyle last year.”

“I quit the team, last year.”

“Nice life story, Harrington, I didn’t ask,” Billy sneered back even though he kind of did ask. He wouldn’t kill him today but Steve couldn’t _relax_.

“Just – letting you know,” He replied with almost an ease to it. “So, you don’t have to feel too bad when I swim you under the water during the relay.”

Billy bared his teeth and laughed almost viciously, slapping Steve on the back just as he was handed his team’s baton, “Always forget that you’re a funny guy, Harrington.”

Steve didn’t so much as dive into the pool as he fell into it. It gave Billy a head start because Steve had to scramble to pick the baton up off the pool floor but it didn’t really mean anything.

Steve had experience and speed, and his muscles were lean and made for this. It felt almost natural to be back in the water, felt like being home after so long. His team won and Steve felt, for the first time in a long time, like his old self.

He felt like King Steve.

He grinned and accepted the slaps on the back from his teammates as he dropped the baton on the ground. He was halfway out of the pool when a force from beneath him pulled him back down. His face smacked off the edge of the pool hard enough to stun him, making his nose ache and his healing split lip sting in the chlorine.

There was something on him – hands, tentacles, claws, whatever- something everywhere, grabbing and pulling, and sharp nails digging into his shoulder and his hair.

Logic left him in gasped breaths and intake of chlorine water. Logic floated away in his blurry blue vision, and panic set in in heaves, and kicks, and screams. Vicious thoughts of Barb on his diving board flashing in his mind, thoughts of a cut hand like his split lip, and grainy pictures taped back together of monsters without faces in his backyard.

Steve was so damn sure that was in the Upside Down, and then there were more hands, and light, and Steve’s head broke the surface.

He scrambled to the edge and out of the pool on shaking arms, collapsing in heaving gasps as he coughed water from his lungs. People felt like walls and they were all closing in on him, their laughter and murmuring felt too close, and warm, and humid against shivering skin like the way breathing tunnels felt alive.

His mouth felt heated, and wet, and humid in a way that was choking and constricting, and felt so much like those damned tunnels being inside of him, _possessing him_.

He couldn’t escape it, he never would.

He didn’t really register Jonathan’s presence until he was crouched in front of him, his hand on Steve’s shoulder and sleeves soaked up to the elbows. He couldn’t register anything beyond the humidity and the whispering, the single sinister laughter and the way his breath shuttered in his chest.

The Upside Down broke him and invaded the cracks.

He could not escape it.

Cold fingers tapped against his cheek and blue eyes drilled into his head, and Steve had to remember _again_ that Jonathan was there, and talking, and “You okay?”

_Fucking peachy. Perfectly content. Happy._

_No, no, no, no, no –_ Steve blinked, “Why do you have your camera?”

“Pictures for yearbook,” Jonathan answered, showing the yearbook pass hanging around his neck. Steve forgot that Nancy convinced him to join. “Steve, you’re shaking.”

 _It’s fucking cold. He likes the cold_.

“It’s freezing.”

Jonathan was beside him and then in front of him as Billy pulled himself out of the pool. He was still laughing, still stalking, standing over Steve like he fucking won something, “Awe, pretty boy, afraid of a little water?”

“Yeah, when you try to _drown_ him,” Jonathan snapped, soft voice going hard. “What’s your deal, Hargrove?”

Billy rolled his eyes slowly at him as if the thought of having to kick Jonathan’s ass was going to be a chore. All he wanted to do was drown Steve and kill him, feed him to the other Demogorgons, and now Jonathan was being fucking difficult about it.

“It was a prank. Harrington, tell your boyfriend to learn how to take a joke.”

 _I’m going to fucking kill you, Harrington_.

“Take a joke,” Steve breathed out, sounding small, and broken, and it was noticeable enough that even Hargrove paused. His eyes shifted from smugness, from excitement and the fire of a fight to surprise, and he took a step back.

Steve pushed himself to his feet, feeling tears in his throat and panic like a rock in his chest, and he – was gone.

Billy didn’t say a word to him when the class filtered into the locker room, no one did.

Steve scrubbed the feeling of the Upside Down’s tunnels from his hair and his skin until his scalp ached and his arms were lined with fingernail scratches. He stayed under the shower’s spray until the chill bled from his bones and the heat made him feel sick.

No one bothered him just filed out of the locker room.

Steve didn’t have the energy to care as the door swung shut on the last person, didn’t have the energy to keep it together.

He hated crying.

It made him feel emptied out and hollow, and it showed red in his eyes but here he was. He was standing in the goddamn locker room showers, trying to be quiet as he bawled his eyes out like his life was some goddamn Lifetime movie.

He was tired, he just wanted to stop being tired.

He wanted to stop being afraid.

Jonathan was waiting outside the door when he finally left.

Steve sighed.

His shoulders fell forwards and he slide his sunglasses onto his face. He felt like crying all over again, “I really can’t do this right now, Jonathan, I just can’t.”

“Steve-“

“I really can’t deal with someone trying to help me right now,” He told him, sounding almost pleading. “Or someone trying to talk to me, or any of this.”

And Jonathan sighed, like Steve disappointed him.

He said, “Steve.”

He said, “About the diner.”

He said, “Nancy is really upset and-“

Oh. _Of course_.

No one actually cared about him just what he could do for them, what they thought that he should do for them.

He didn’t trust his own voice so he just walked away.

He was so goddamn tired of all of this.

It was raining after school. The kind of rain that was more ice than water, that seeped into your clothing and pelted your skin like needles, and made you more miserable than weather had any right to.

Dustin was waiting outside of his car with his bike. He grinned when he saw Steve and exclaimed in all of his end-of-the-world seriousness that only he could possess, “ _Finally!_ ”

“School ended forever ago, Steve!” He whined. “What were you even doing, _other_ than letting me freeze to death?”

Steve sighed and he mustered up the energy to put a smirk on his face, “Thought you could bike now.”

“It’s _raining_ , Steve. Do you want me to die of pneumonia?”

“No.”

Dustin’s bike fit easily in Steve’s trunk and he chattered the whole way to his house about DND. They were playing that night because he was going to his dad’s over the weekend and Max couldn’t get out of her house any other day. He talked, and talked, and talked, and told Steve that he should play again.

He doesn’t listen when Steve told him no. No one ever listened to Steve.

“Fuck, goddamn it, Dustin,” He snapped, fingernails digging into his steering wheel, _fuck_. “I hate it, okay? It’s just – fucking make believe and there’s too much shit that you have to just _know_ , that I’m _never_ going to get caught up on. It’s not even useful to know any of that, it’s only been helpful like once and girls don’t give a shit.”

He was breathing hard and his eyes felt wet behind his sunglasses. He always felt like crying now.

Talking felt like crying when no one ever fucking _listened_ to him.

“Steve, I think that you should come. It’s important.

It really wasn’t.

Nothing that you thought was important at thirteen was actually important.

Nothing was important, least of all Steve’s presence anywhere.

“Why?”

Dustin sighed.

He pinched the bridge of his nose like Steve was so fucking difficult to deal with, like Steve was a chore, and exhausting, and always fucking wanting something from him, “So, you’re sad again today.”

The words were a conclusion to a conversation that they hadn’t been having. It was a simple diagnosis and now they were supposed to just move on from that. He was supposed to concede and give in because it was the sum and total of all that embodied Steve’s problems.

He was just sad, someone could get over being sad.

He could stop being _sad_.

He never wanted to play Dungeons and Dragons again but that would change when he wasn’t sad anymore. He never had the energy to shower, fixing his hair felt like a marathon, eating was perplexing at times and crippled him with stomach cramps and nausea at others. He was just _sad_.

He hadn’t wanted to sit with the kids at the diner after Snowball, he was sad. He blew off Hopper and the kids knew about it, he was just sad. It was Dustin’s conclusion and it was right but it was _wrong_.

Steve didn’t feel sad, he felt _empty_. He felt dumb, and tired, and paranoid.

“I guess that could be it, kid,” He said just to concede, to give in and get on with his short life. Billy Hargrove was going to kill him sometime this week and Dustin would have to bike from school every day. “I’m just-“

“Tired, I know,” Dustin finished. “That’s because you’re sad.”

Sad was just a simpler way of saying depressed and Steve already told Dustin that he wasn’t depressed. He was _happy_.

His parents weren’t home and they weren’t coming home any time soon. Nancy was probably sneaking Jonathan out of her room in the middle of the night, and happy, and slipping notes into his locker. And Steve – he was so fucking gosh-darn happy.

“I think I’m just tired, man. I didn’t sleep all that well last night, my neighbor got a dog that barks.”

None of Steve’s neighbors had dogs, Dustin knew that. “…Yeah.”

“So like, don’t worry about it,” Steve shrugged. _Leave me alone, get out of my car. Go and take your middle school fucking psychiatry to someone that needed it._ “Have fun playing DND tonight, I hope you win.”

“Steve, you don’t _win_ DND, you – no whatever, you’re trying to distract me and it’s not going to work. You _need_ to come, Steve.”

“I really don’t.”

“I’m serious.”

“And I’m serious as a fucking heart attack when I tell you that I’m not going, kid,” He told him, popping his trunk so Dustin would get the hint and leave. “There’s nothing on this green Earth that is going to make me.”

“It’s just – it’s _really_ important that you do,” Dustin stressed. “I’m serious.”

“ _Why?_ What is ever important about me doing anything, Dustin?”

Dustin sighed again, “There’s been talk about – voting again on if you should be in the party. It’s getting pretty serious.”

That landed like a punch to the gut and Steve felt winded.

“And well, Will switched sides because of everything that happened at the diner after Snowball,” Dustin continued. “He thought that you were kind of unfair to Jonathan because all that stuff with Nancy, and he doesn’t like when people yell at girls because it reminds him of his dad.”

It burnt behind Steve’s eyes and his chest ached. Being beaten up didn’t hurt this much.

Dustin kept going, completely unaware, “Mike could convince El since she barely knows you. And – Lucas could go either way, really. So, you should come and prove them wrong.”

Kids didn’t even want to be his friend, didn’t want him hanging around. He ruined their dance, he wasn’t useful anymore. His chest _hurt_.

“I – can’t,” He said thickly, his eyes burning behind dark frames.

_It was for the best._

_He deserved this_.

“I just can’t, Dustin,” He repeated. “I have college essays.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I gave Steve hope and then I took it away because I'm awful. Usually, I write a pretty depressing first draft and then edit it so it's lighter in other drafts but this chapter just wanted to push Steve to the breaking point.


	12. Chapter 12

The world wasn’t ending.

That wasn’t what was happening, this was nothing.

Steve knew what it felt like when the world was ending and it did not feel as fucking _empty_ as he was feeling right now. No.

No, the world ended with humidity, screaming tunnels burning bright with gasoline, and his face beaten and swallow, and hot. The world ended loudly, in wailing and screeching, and the Byers house in shambles. There was terror at the end of world, and heat, and fire burning beneath his skin.

The world ended with a bat made of nails steady in his hands.

He stood in the crossfire of the world ending, at the frontlines. This – this felt like he had been left behind and forgotten, and _dumb_. This felt like nothing, like he was less than nothing.

There was an irritating tickle beneath his breastbone that he couldn’t scratch. His palms were sweaty, and his heart beat painfully and almost erratic against his ribcage. There was an ache so deep in his chest that it felt hollowing. His face felt hot with embarrassment and the will not to start crying.

He felt so overwhelmingly full, and so empty, and telling himself that he didn’t even fucking _care_.

Telling himself, _you want this._

Telling himself, _you prepared for this, you knew this was coming._

Telling himself, _you deserve this. You’re fucking useless. You’re out of season decoration._

Telling himself, _you should have killed yourself yesterday when you had the nerve._

Telling himself, _shut up._

He couldn’t remember a single thing that happened during school, he was more auto-pilot than man nowadays. He remembered nothing after Mrs. Gonzales suggested that he speak with the guidance counselor again except that he had smiled.

He had smiled and didn’t stop smiling as he told her, “ _I’m fine, seriously. I’m okay._

 He felt numb, and empty, and like his brain had shut down and wouldn’t pick back up again. It felt like even the softest things – Mrs. Gonzales smile, Carissa turning him down easy – felt like the harshest digs, and he just couldn’t care anymore.

Billy was keeping his distance which was _something_. He guessed.

Billy was still watching him, still stalking, still everywhere but never too close. It was like the pool and afterwards in the showers had almost scared him away, or at least made him wary.

It felt like the week after the fight in the Byers’ kitchen all over again. Billy didn’t know how to be around Steve so he wasn’t. _Good._

It was probably some kind of Stockholm Syndrome but Steve kind of _missed_ the harassment, felt paranoid and lost without it.

It felt kind of like he had lost sight of something that’s importance came from it being deadly. It was like he lost sight of a snake in the grass or a demo-dog in the night. The only thing worse than being beaten up by Billy Hargrove was waiting for it to happen.

He waited.

He sighed as he leaned up against his car, letting the soft November rain wet down his face and seep beneath the tear in his jacket shoulder. The parking lot was starting to clear out as kids filtered out from both the high school and the middle school, and yet, he still waited.

He waited, and waited, and waited.

Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes. An hour.

He rubbed at his chest with cold fingers and coughed, the tickle was still there.

Sometimes the kids had AV Club more than one day a week because Mr. Clarke had time for it or got new equipment, or _blah_ , something. Sometimes Dustin forgot to tell Steve about it and he ended up waiting forever after school but that was _fine_.

The kid forgot, big deal. Steve was always forgetting shit when he was thirteen and he wasn’t even fighting monsters at that age. It wasn’t like they even saw each other that morning.

Dustin had called him late yesterday evening and told him that he was going to start biking to school in the mornings because this cute little eighth graders, Veronica, that lived in his neighborhood asked him if he wanted to. She liked retiles, Star Trek, and most importantly, Dustin.

It was kind of a big deal that Dustin did this, “You get that, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m not like, blowing you off or something.”

“No, man, I get it. Girls are a big deal.”

“Yeah, exactly!”

Steve had offered to drive them both to school since it was cold and was only going to get colder. The forecast called for rain and chances of snow all week but when Steve pointed that out, Dustin told him that it would be too weird to have him drive them.

According to Dustin, if Steve drove them than she would just start ignoring him because Steve was in _high school_ and _every_ middle school girl apparently had a crush on high school guys. Plus, Steve was _The Steve Harrington_ , which apparently meant something sometimes.

“And like, you’re running late almost all the time anyways,” Dustin added, letting Steve down gently over the Byers’ telephone line while DND was running wild in the background. “You’re always complaining that I make you late to first period and that you’re going to get detention because of me. This way, you can get to class on time.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

“….Steve,” Dustin said quieter, which just made the party sound even louder in the background, sound abundant and happy, and young. “Uh, I – are you like – are you _sure_ that you’re really okay? It’s just that, I don’t know, you seemed a little off, in the car earlier. Like, more than just sad this time.”

Steve _wasn’t_ sad, he kept telling people that but no one ever listened to him. He wasn’t depressed, he didn’t have PTSD or _whatever_. He was just – _tired,_ all the fucking time.

Steve bit his tongue and blinked hard, and doesn’t say that he had been sitting on his diving board contemplating what Barb must have felt in her last minutes and how he could make himself feel the same way when the phone had rung.

He was cold, and tired, and he wanted to sleep but he tried so hard to make himself _sound_ normal and alive, “I’m great, kid, you’re saving me a fuck ton on gas.”

“Yeah, but –“ Whatever Dustin had planned to say, whatever concern that he had was cut off and forgotten by multiple loud calls telling him to hurry up and return to the game. “I’M COMING ASSHOLES, JESUS! I have to go, Steve, see you after school.”

Steve blinked, and he was still in the parking lot, and he was cold.

He shivered and wiped some of the rain off his face, walking over to the bike racks to keep his circulation flowing but – but the bike racks were empty. _Oh_.

His chest ached. _Oh._ Okay.

Billy was right. _Shut up._

Dustin must have – Jesus, he must have forgotten to mention that he was going to bike home with Veronica too, that –

That he didn’t need Steve, that Steve was obsolete, and dumb, and completely fucking useless.

He probably wasn’t even _in_ the party anymore. They were all probably hoping that he’d take a hint and let them fade away so they didn’t have to have an awkward conversation with him.

He sighed.

He sighed and he ignored the way his chest felt crushed. He ignored how tight and hollow, and Upside Down cold he felt all at once, and how his throat felt constricted and sore.

_Maybe he was getting sick or, maybe he was just weak._

_Shut up. Please._

Steve knew it to be true.

He ignored the heat of embarrassment and shame because now, they _knew_ it too.

 _Whatever_.

He shouldn’t even care because he was eighteen, and graduating soon, maybe, probably. He was King Steve, and _cool_ , and wasn’t even fucking dating Nancy anymore so – so just _whatever_.

He turned on his heels and trekked back across the parking lot, _fuck it_.

 He wasted his time for no goddamn reason, for kids that he doesn’t even _owe_ anything to, that he took a beating for and went into – into those fucking tunnels that have ruined him beyond all repair. _God_ , he was so stupid.

He should have known that they’d leave him, everybody left him eventually.

He rubbed his eyes tiredly and pulled his keys out of his jacket pocket. He refused to acknowledge how hard it was to fucking breathe. He ignored the burn behind his eyes.

He just wanted to go back to his empty house where the only person he was disappointing was himself.

He got in his car and pulled out of the parking lot, and missed the street he needed to turn down to get to his house. Instead, he took a right, and then a left, and then he turned down Dustin’s road because he _had_ to check.

All he had to do was check and then the uneasiness would go away, then he could just be _told_ that he wasn’t in the party and start accepting that too. He just needed to make sure that Dustin was there and – and there was no bike in the driveway.

There wasn’t an answer at the door when he knocked.

The lights were off when he looked in the windows and Mrs. Henderson’s car wasn’t in the garage but Steve knew that she worked until five o’clock. That meant that she didn’t have Dustin with her, so Dustin wasn’t here.

So, Dustin was missing.

He drove the roads by the Byers’ house to find it empty, and then drove by the bikeless front yard and the dark windows of the Sinclairs. He slowed to a stop in front of the Wheeler’s house and Ted had just shrugged when Steve asked him, “I haven’t seen Mike today.”

“What about Nancy?” Steve asked breathlessly. “Where is she?”

“She’s not here either,” He said, drawling out a flat joke, “Our kids don’t live here anymore.”

And Steve felt sick.

He felt numb, and shaky, and like he was breathing too fast to actually be breathing because he fucked up. He _lost_ the fucking kids, and the last time someone couldn’t find one of them they – _fuck_. _Fuck, fuck, fuck._

This was not the end of the world, _probably._

This was panic.

This was deep seeded heavy panic that was sitting on his chest, pressing harder into him than Nancy ever did. This was expanding beneath his bones and shattering them, infecting his blood and his lung until it was _all_ of him. There was nothing left but the panic.

He felt like he was shaking apart, like the heart in his chest was going to bust out and his lungs had turned to stone, or ice, or something equally as unmovable because he didn’t _feel_ like he was breathing enough.

He was panicking. He was _suffocating_.

He was going to actually fucking suffocate out of water.

He was becoming acutely aware of the sound of his own breath coming out wheezed and high, laboring out of his chest in heaves but it wasn’t enough. He didn’t feel like he was breathing enough.

His mouth tasted dry, and like blood, and bile, and burnt Demogorgon flesh. He was going to be sick, he was going to suffocate. _Jesus._

He couldn’t catch him breath and he _trying_ so hard to.

He felt like he was going to burst into tears. He couldn’t fucking do this all over again, and couldn’t breathe. It was catching up with him because his vision was blurring behind a veil of unshed tears.

He doesn’t know why he went back to the school or how he managed not to crash his fucking car _– not that anybody would care –_ but he was suddenly overwhelmed with the _need_ to check the middle school.

His knees felt weak as he broke hard into two parking spots and put the car into park. His head was buzzing as he stumbled out, feeling almost drunk with panic, and rushed across the high school parking lot to the middle school’s.

He needed to breathe but he wasn’t going to be able too until he found them.

The end of the world didn’t feel like he was suffocating, it felt like broken dinner plates, and hard fists, and Nancy Wheeler threatening to shoot him in the face.

“…Steve?”

The world wasn’t ending because it didn’t _feel_ like it but it definitely felt like it was the end of him.

T.S. Eliot was fucking wrong.

Turned out, it was just people that ended with a whimper.

“Hey Steve?” He ignored the noise, and the quick paced footsteps. It was meaningless buzzing in his ears. “Steve, hey, what’s wrong? Where are you going?”

He pushed a hand off his shoulder, shoving against solid weight in his way and forced his feet to rush towards the entrance doors. They _had_ to be here, he needed them to be here.

He heard voices behind him, beside him, in front of him as he pushed into the school, but he couldn’t _focus_ on any of that because he _needed_ to do this.

“St – Steve Harrington?”

Mr. Clarke’s voice followed him down the hall, drifting into his earshot. He sounded confused and concerned as Steve pulled the doors that were locked and checked lockers that were empty. His face appeared in Steve’s view and then he was in his way, and Steve felt – he felt trapped.

“Steve, stop this,” Mr. Clarke said when Steve went around him. “What are you doing?”

He couldn’t _stop_ because they – if they weren’t here than they were in the Upside Down all alone. Why didn’t he understand that? Steve couldn’t stop, “I can’t – No, no, I – I can’t-“

“Why not?” Mr. Clarke asked. “Here, come sit down. You’re shaking like a leaf.”

“I lost – _Jesus_.”

“What did you lose? I’ll help you find it.”

Mr. Clarke was using the same patient calm voice that he had used when Steve was in eighth grade and averaging a C in his class. Like Steve was just not understanding the class content and not like he lost an entire group of people.  

Steve pushed pass him – he didn’t even care.

It was like Barb all over again, like Will, and people weren’t going to _get_ it. They weren’t going to understand that something was wrong, that someone was missing and in danger, and going to fucking _die_.

He pulled on the AV room door and it didn’t budge at all so – they weren’t there either.

Steve couldn’t breathe.

Mr. Clarke said softly, “Mr. Harrington.”

“ _Steve_ ,” Mr. Clarke didn’t say but someone did.

There was a hand on his elbow that wasn’t Mr. Clarke’s because Mr. Clarke was in front of him, trying to talk to him in soft and calm words with his hands out in front of him. It was like he thought that Steve might hit him which was _hilarious_.

As if Steve had ever started a fight that he could win.

Steve choked on a laugh at the thought, it sounded almost like a sob, “I – can’t breathe, okay? I can’t breathe, and it hurts. It hurts.”

“You’re hyperventilating,” Mr. Clarke’s voice was an ever-present calm to Steve’s storm and he didn’t _deserve_ it. “We just need to get you to calm down and you’ll be okay.”

“No, I won’t.”

“What – what’s wrong?”

It was the other voice that asked. Steve’s eyes drifted over to his shoulder, to the hand on it and followed it up to the blue eyes and bad hair, and he felt very much like crying.

 _Of course,_ it was Jonathan.

 _Of course,_ because it _had_ to be Jonathan.

Steve was falling apart. He was cracking into pieces and breaking apart, and suffocating to death. It was just all the more proof that Jonathan was better than him at everything.

He only lost one kid. Steve lost all of them.

“Can’t fine – I can’t find –“ He sucked in a breath and it sounded like a wheeze. _Fuck_. He was really going to die in the goddamn middle school. “Dustin, I can’t-“

Something clicked in Jonathan’s mind because he said, “ _Oh_.”

He said, “Steve, there was a fieldtrip today.”

He said, “All the kids are at the zoo in Indianapolis.”

He said, “They’re safe. They won’t be back until tonight.”

Steve said, “Oh.”

Steve said, _“Fuck_.”

His back fell against the lockers and he couldn’t even feel relief, he just felt weak. He took in a shaky breath, and then another, and then – “Why the _fuck_ does no one tell me anything?”

“I-“

“ _No._ I drive that kid home – I drive him home _every day_ and he wasn’t there, and I’m just – I’m just supposed to fucking _not_ freak out when he’s fucking missing?” He asked, demanded, _begged_. “Like – Like fucking kids aren’t going missing left and right in this town. Your brother went missing _last year_ , and Barb – I’m not supposed to freak out when no one tells me anything?”

“Steve, I’m-“

 _God_ , he didn’t even want to hear whatever fucking pity excuse that Jonathan had because _Dustin_ said that he would see him after school. Steve took him home all the time, he drove _half_ of those fucking kids around half the time and – it just wasn’t _fair._

Steve deserved to be in the party. He fought monsters too.

He deserved to know things.

“Steve?” Jonathan sounded confused, and a little hurt like he had some fucking reason to be feeling that way.

Steve must have spaced out again because when he blinked, Mr. Clarke was gone, and Jonathan was fucking staring at him all concerned because he didn’t understand Steve. If he understood him than he’d just leave him the fuck alone already, and he’d get why Steve couldn’t stay here anymore, and why he pushed him out of his way as he walked to the door.

If he understood than he wouldn’t have followed him outside because Steve was _this_ fucking close to breaking something.

“Just – fucking leave me alone,” He swore, rounding on Jonathan halfway across the parking lot. Basketball practice must have gotten out not too long ago because there were a few people still hanging around.

Steve stopped, feeling a complete and total despair hit him because he forgot about practice. He missed practice _again_ and the coach wasn’t going to let him play in the next game, “God just, why don’t you go find Nancy? Go be with her.”

“Nancy volunteered to chaperone the fieldtrip and I’m here with you right now, man,” Jonathan said calmly, like it mattered, like Steve mattered. “And with – what happened with the pool yesterday, and outside of the locker room-“

“Where you were probably getting the nerve up to sneak in and take pictures of me,” Steve sneered, getting up something that sounded like the old him, like he was Steve Harrington, Keg Stand King.

If he was in hell than Steve wanted to fucking deserve to be there.

If he had to find a way back to being King Steve just too damn himself to this hell than he would find it. He could pretend and let it exhaust him, let the smug king eat him and destroy him. He’d let Jonathan Byers kill him before Billy Hargrove ever got the chance.

He’d let Demogorgons devour him. He didn’t fucking care anymore.

“Because that’s what you do, isn’t it?” He asked harshly, shoving Jonathan back a step. “Or, do you only do that to the people that you’re stalking?”

“Steve-“

“But you’re fucking _everywhere_ , aren’t you? So, I guess you’re – _why_ are you even here if you’re not-“

“I was using the dark room and saw you when I-“

“- _if_ you’re not fucking stalking me too,” He rushed, speaking too loud and too fast. “Well, I’m not – I’m not Nancy, okay?” I’m not going to be cool with that shit, I’m not going to think it’s charming or whatever. I’m not going to fuck over someone to suck your dick so you can just-“

“What’s going on here?”

Christ.

 _Of course_ , Steve thought. He could only be fucked over so many times in one day before he was going to start thinking that the universe had a vendetta against him.

“Nothing that concerns you, Hargrove,” Jonathan said, cutting a look away from Steve to just over his shoulder so Billy was there, approaching as silent as a shark.

Steve blinked hard and slide on his sunglasses.

He could feel his hands shaking and he knew that it was noticeable because Jonathan kept looking at them. He felt a burning behind his eyes, felt that ache in his chest, felt like if he breathed than he was going to start screaming and he wasn’t going to stop.

Steve gritted his teeth and said, “You’re not interrupting anything because nothing happenings here. It’s over.”

“Steve-“

“Got something in your ears, _freak_ , he said it was over,” Steve heard Billy sneer dangerously, and amused, like he licked his bottom lip and called Steve _‘amigo’_ outside of the Byers’ house.

It was a nightmare voice, a haunting voice, and Steve couldn’t _stay_ with that voice. He turned on his feet and he forced them to walk, and he told himself to _breathe_.

_Please?_

Steve felt like crying, he felt like laughing.

There had to be more universes than this and the Upside Down. He must have strolled right into one of them because Billy Hargrove of all fucking monsters should not be sticking up for him in _any_ universe.

Maybe Steve was sick. Maybe he was sleeping and this was a nightmare.

Maybe he should climb into Nancy’s window and get the shotgun he knew that was still hidden in the top of her closet. _Shut up._

He wiped at his face even though he knew that he wasn’t crying and tried to ignore everything. He needed to get in his car, to get away from this and leave.

He could call his mom and ask if he could fly out to New York to be with them.

_No, you can’t. They don’t want you. They hate you._

_Shut up._

_God,_ his chest ached. It fucking hurt.

“Fuck,” His hands were shaking so bad that he dropped his keys and he had to pick them back up. His chest hurt so bad that he couldn’t help the way he curled in on himself, like he was dying. He needed _out_.

He needed to leave, to just go home.

Steve got the door unlocked and shoved his keys into his pocket but when he reached back for the handle, there was a hand on his wrist. Billy was suddenly so close, and there, and _smirking_ because Steve couldn’t stop the sharp intake of breath he took. Billy heard it because he was a fucking monster.

Steve might as well have cut himself in the Upside Down.

“What’s shaking, King Steve?” Billy grinned like a shark. “Lover’s spat with your freak boyfriend? What, his pictures of you not pretty enough?”

Billy’s tongue dragged slowly over his bottom lip, leaning in almost menacingly, “Or, is it just that you’re afraid that the freak’s going to hurt that pretty face of yours again and then fuck off to go fuck your girlfriend.”

He made a show of wincing at Steve like he felt sorry for him, like he was fucking capable of it, “Oh, _ex_ -girlfriend, wasn’t it?”

“Fuck _off_ ,” Steve hissed, or wheezed, or begged. He didn’t know. “I need to go.”

“ _Oh_ , do you?”

“Hargrove,” Jonathan warned, sounding too close but Steve couldn’t see him pass all the space that Billy took up. “Let him go.”

“Tell your boyfriend to back off, Harrington. We’re just talking, right?”

_Wrong._

_He was going to kill him._

Steve’s eyes darted back and forth, and Billy squeezed his wrist like a warning. It was as if he was proving some kind of incentive, if Steve played nice and did as he was told than he wouldn’t get hurt. As if Billy wasn’t already planning on fucking murdering him.

If Billy tried to kill him right now then Jonathan would probably try to get involved.

He wouldn’t kill Jonathan, probably, but he would hurt him because Billy was always hurting people for no damn reason. Somewhere deep in Steve’s sleepy panicked subconscious, he kind of wanted that. _Shut up._

Some tiny part of him that was tired and vindictive, and _mean_ wanted Jonathan to feel how much it fucking hurt to be on the receiving end of Billy’s fists, to understand why he should have a place in the party and why he was fucking hurting all the time. _Shut. Up._

He wanted to fucking die, wanted Billy to beat him to death and for Jonathan to be so fucking helpless to the whole thing. He wanted Nancy to call him a murderer for his inaction, for his inability to fix anything. He wanted her to hate Jonathan, wanted her to come back, wanted – _SHUT. UP._

Steve’s voice sounded void of life. It sounded otherworldly cold, sounded dead, “Back off, Byers.”

Billy reacted to the change in his voice.

It was instantaneous.

His blue eyes shifted from amused, from dangerous, from lust for a good fight, for _fire_ to burn them both to something concern, confused, disturbed. He took a step back, his grip on Steve’s wrist loosening but not disappearing.

Billy’s eyes bored into him, searching him, and he found something that he understood. It was like he could see Steve for what he was instead of just what he wasn’t – he wasn’t Nancy’s boyfriend, wasn’t King Steve, wasn’t his parent’s handsome son. He wasn’t smart, or in the party, or loved by anybody.

He was broken, Billy saw that.

He was drowning, Billy saw it.

He was falling apart, and lonely, and never threw out the trash bag with Karen Wheeler’s sleeping pills in it. He kind of wanted to die, he kind of thought about it a lot, probably too much and definitely more than normal, more than he used to. Billy _saw_ that.

Billy saw into all of Steve’s cracks and his faults, and he _smiled._

It was all sharp teeth and pointed edges, a mouthful of daggers and knives, and he was going to tear Steve to pieces.

Steve didn’t know who he was trying to fool anymore, them or himself, “Hey, guess what? I’m really fucking fine and have places to be so you can both-“

“I don’t think you know the first fucking meaning of that word, pretty boy.”

He actually did because he wasn’t a fucking idiot, and he knew that he _wasn’t_ fine, but seriously-

“Why do you fucking care, Hargrove?” He snapped, followed by a dead humorless laugh. “ _Oh yeah,_ I _forgot_. We’re friends, right? You want so fucking badly to be my friend, and to treat me like shit because no one fucking _likes_ you. Hell, your fucking sister-“

He was too close now.

Billy leaned into Steve like _everything_ on the goddamn planet was leaning into him, stealing the lungs out of his chest and freezing the blood in his heart. He was going to kill him, he was just waiting to be set off.

He was just _daring_ Steve to finish his sentence so he could justify his actions, so he could say that Steve just set him off, it was his own fault.

And Steve _wanted_ it.

If the only way out of this situation was death than Steve would take it. He just wanted to get the inevitable over with but – but his fucking mouth wouldn’t open and Billy _knew_ it.

Billy’s lips tilted into a smirk that held no amusement, that held no joy, like Steve was too fucked up for this to really be fun. He just had to do this because he was destined to, right?

Steve was just on borrowed time anyways.

Max just delayed what would _always_ happen.

It was the reason everything felt so – _much_ , and fake, and like he wasn’t really living, just moving through motions. He was a ghost, he could not be laid to rest until Billy killed him.

Steve accepted it. He embraced it.

So, Billy smirked, and he readjusted his grip on Steve’s wrist and squeezed it tight.

And the bone breaks.

And the bone breaks.

And the bone breaks.

“Steve, come on. Breathe, okay.”

 _What_?

Steve’s eyes snapped open and his wrist wasn’t broken, it was not even bruised. It was not anything but too pale, and dainty, and shaking, and – “Fuck.”

He couldn’t _breathe_.

“You’re hyperventilating, Steve, you got to calm down.”

Jonathan was in front of him, talking to him, but Steve wasn’t listening and he was barely seeing him because his vision was _tunneling_. It was narrowing to a point and going dark around the edges, and Billy was _still_ there with eyes that were – curious, maybe.

He didn’t look smug anymore, or entertained, or destined for murder. He was just watching because Steve _was_ the car crash that people couldn’t look away from. He was a whole nine car pile-up, and he was going to fucking suffocate surrounded by the two people that he hated the most.

He could feel his vision start to fade out and disappear, the slow way his throat was clenching shut. His lungs were seizing up and his anxiety was heavy in his chest, smothering him. He realized with startling clarity, he was about to pass out.

 _Shit_.

 

“Aren’t you going to take him to the hospital?”

The question followed the sound of tires screeching to a stop on gravel, followed loud metal music, followed Billy Hargrove stepping out of his car and standing at the bottom of Jonathan’s porch steps. It was not so much asked as it was demanded around an unlit cigarette, somehow as threatening as the crossed arms and sharp eyes.

And Jonathan, with Steve like a dead weight against his side because he _passed out_ and hadn’t woken up, and he couldn’t just leave him in the school parking lot, had his thoughts cut into with this annoying viciousness demanding things from him. He wanted to ask why Hargrove was even here, why he even cared.

But he didn’t. He hefted Steve’s slouching form even higher up on his shoulder and grounded through his teeth, “No.”

He didn’t wait for a response, just turned back to the door to unlock and open it before he heard an incredulous, _“No?”_

Jonathan heaved, and Hargrove didn’t help at all. He just made himself at home, leaning up against the doorframe to the kitchen with a cigarette still dangling unlit between his teeth.

Jonathan could feel Billy’s glare on him as he dropped Steve down onto the couch. He pushed his hair out of his face and breathed out, “It was a panic attack.”

 “It didn’t look like no-“

“I recognize them from my brother,” Jonathan cut in. “He needs rest, and he’s doing that. He needs to just – talk, to someone.”

Hargrove scoffed, “He need a make-over and a tea party, too?”

It was sarcasm and Jonathan was not going to raise to whatever bait Billy was waving because well, tea and a shower was exactly what he had in mind. Instead, he just folded Steve’s arms against his chest and put a pillow under his head, “He’s obviously going to be fine, you can go.”

“No.”

It was an awkward ten minutes of them just staring at each other, sizing the other up and deciding that they really did fucking hate each other. Jonathan doesn’t understand _why_ Billy was there, why he was rudely acting like he owned the place and eating them out of house and home, and why he kept fucking talking.

Jonathan wasn’t listening. He could not care any less.

Steve shifted in his sleep again and Billy shut up for a whole two seconds.

Steve slept in shuttered breaths, arms crossed over his chest and hands tucked into his arm pits, one of his legs were stretched out halfway across the coffee table. He didn’t appear distressed the way that Jonathan had come to recognize nightmares on his brother’s face.

He returned his eyes to the tea he was making, flickering them over to Billy leaning back against the doorframe again.

He wondered why this almost felt normal.

Billy asked suddenly, “Is he supposed to be asleep?”

Jonathan startled at the question, “What?”

“He could have a head injury, right?” Hargrove asked, sounding annoyed that he even had to explain this shit. “He hit his head when you wussed out and let him smack his face into the ground. Could be slipping into a coma right now and your dumbass is letting it happen.”

Jonathan blinked, “Do you care?”

Billy didn’t say anything until after Jonathan had finished making tea and had sat it on the table, “No, I don’t.”

It was sometime before Jonathan heard, “I’m just saying, if he has some kind of brain bleed or some shit, and he fucking dies than that’s all on you. I didn’t do shit.”

“He’s not going to die. He’s _asleep_.”

“Whatever.”

The minutes ticked, and Steve’s breathing turned harsh and ragged. Hargrove shot Jonathan a look that clearly said _‘see, fucker.’_ Before Jonathan could say that Steve was probably having a nightmare, he had calmed back down, shifting on the couch.

“I’m just saying,” Billy began because he was apparently always _just saying_ something to Jonathan. “You need to just bite the bullet and-“

“Please, don’t use the phrase ‘bite the bullet’ when I know for a fact that there is a gun somewhere in this room,” Steve groaned, scrubbing at his eyes. He really didn’t want to ask how he ended up on the Byers’ couch, people were always moving him without his permission.

He was not dead.

He paused when he saw Billy. He was not dead, _yet_.

He yawned and asked Jonathan, “What is he doing here?”

“You scared him.”

“You fucking did not, _nothing_ fucking scares me, least of all your skinny ass,” Billy scoffed around the unlit cigarette. “Had to make sure your delicate rich boy ass wasn’t injured or some shit, I don’t want the police on my ass because your daddy’s overprotective.”

Steve’s dad was hardly fucking _there_. Billy was constantly telling Steve that his parents didn’t love him and he was right about it so why the hell did he think that his dad would care?  

“If I didn’t bother pressing charges when you smashed in my face then why would I decide to do anything now?’ Steve asked, tilting his head backwards so he didn’t have to look at the expression on Jonathan’s face that clearly said that ‘yeah, he should contact the police both of these times.’

He found Billy’s eyes and frowned, “Why are you really here?”

“What the fuck is it to you?”

“Sorry, didn’t know that you were best friends with Byers.”

The Byers’ house was still wrecked and Billy looked as at home in the mess and chaos now as he did on that night. Steve resisted the urge to shutter when Billy laughed, and grinned with all his teeth, “Nowhere better to be. Had to keep your boyfriend from doing something stupid like call an ambulance.”

Jonathan shot Billy an incredulous look over Steve’s head.

Steve sat up abruptly. The world in his vision took a sharp left turn and he went with it, spilling off the couch and onto the floor without anybody offering to help. He stumbled back to his feet, blinking until the world stopped spinning, “What the – Byers, seriously?”

“I stopped the fucking moron, obviously, you’re welcome,” Billy waved off, rolling his eyes. “What year is it, dickhead?”

Jonathan sighed, “That’s for a concussion, not a panic attack.”

“I don’t have-“

“Oh, you’re going to start denying shit, Harrington? You breathed a little too hard and faceplanted into the _ground_.”

“What?” Steve looked before Jonathan and Billy, and wondered if not for the first time, if the universe could stop fucking torturing him already. “I fucking hate everybody in this goddamn room.”

Billy’s mouth turned to a razor sharp edge, jagged pointed knives ready for a fight.

It was saying, _I’m going to fucking kill you, Harrington._

It was saying, _I’m going to take that crown of yours._

Saying, _plant your feet._

Saying, _amigo._

Billy said, “Boo-fucking-hoo, Harrington. Nobody’s going to feel sorry about your make believe problems. What, daddy take away his credit card, gonna have to _work_ for something?”

Jonathan sighed so sympathetic, so pitying, so understanding, “I know you’ve been having a hard time lately. No one is blaming you, okay.”

Billy sneered, “I didn’t even _touch_ you to lay you out this time, you’re so fucking pathetic.”

Jonathan put his hand on Steve’s shoulder and said, “Everything that happened was a lot, and Nancy and I never sat down and talked to you about-“

Steve felt like crying.

This was literally the worst fucking nightmare and he didn’t really think that he deserved for it to be this bad.

He didn’t want to cry. He fucking hated crying.

He could feel himself starting to shut down. If his mind didn’t start to turn off the parts that hurt, and were sad, and felt like dying all the time than he was going to start bawling his eyes out.

Steve didn’t want to be here.

He wanted to go home but he didn’t want that either because he _hated_ home. Because he didn’t even have a home, or parents, or anything that fucking mattered.

So, he smiled.

He said, “Hey, I need a smoke.”

He knew what Jonathan was going to say before he said it because Will had said the same thing to him before, “Mom’s trying to quit smoking inside so you have to do it outside.”

Steve nodded and he got up, and he walked outside. He didn’t stop walking.

“Steve?”

He hesitated just at the edge of the property because that voice was so nice, and so caring, and he just wanted to melt into it. He wanted to live with that voice, grow up with that voice, have a whole childhood where that voice was the first thing he heard every single morning, “Hi, Mrs. Byers.”

“What are you doing out here?” She asked. There was concern hidden in her voice because she probably spoke to Hopper, or Jonathan or Will, or maybe Steve just looked as dead as he felt. “It’s pretty chilly out here, honey.”

He shrugged and didn’t tell her that he was too tired and numb to feel anything but hollow, “I’m smoking.”

He wasn’t actually.

He didn’t even have cigarettes on him and she didn’t call him out on that because if she did, Steve might just fall apart completely and she was the best mother _ever_ so she probably realized that.

She tore apart her house and fought monsters for her son. She looked into the face of a dead kid that was identical to Will and just _knew_ that it wasn’t her son. She didn’t give up on her children, she cared about them unconditionally.

She was _there_ for them.

Steve didn’t think his parents would even care if went missing, if they even noticed that he wasn’t there. He knew that they sure as hell wouldn’t be able to identify him by a birthmark.

It really wasn’t fair.

Steve just didn’t _get_ it. Jonathan walked around like Hawkins was the worst damn place in the universe but he had Nancy, and Joyce, and Will, and was in the party. He just – Steve didn’t understand why he didn’t deserve any of that.

They fought the same monsters but Jonathan had everything. The only thing Steve had left was his popularity and he was about to lose that.

“Honey?” Joyce asked, worry taking over her voice. Steve blinked. He spaced out _again_ because she was closer, rubbing his arm comfortingly, “Are you sure that you’re okay?”

“I’m fine.”

Except that he wasn’t fine. He sounded dead again and Joyce noticed because Will had sounded dead a lot when he was most definitely not alright.

“You look like you might be catching something. Why don’t you come inside and I’ll get you a blanket and-“

“I don’t know if you know this,” Steve said slowly, numbly, like he was going to depart some kind of wisdom onto her, like he fucking knew anything at all.

He took a breath, freezing out the hurt in his chest with cold air, and forced himself to feel nothing as he was mean for no reason. He couldn’t handle someone trying to _help_ him right now, “I’m not your kid, Mrs. Byers. We all know how much trouble you have keeping track of the ones that you have already. You don’t need to add me to the struggle.”

She just blinked at him.

Once, twice, like she couldn’t believe that he was really this much of an asshole. She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out so she closed it.

Steve pulled his arm away and turned towards the woods.

The only think that separated his backyard from the Byers’ house was two miles of woodland area. The only think keeping him here was the woods that ate Will, that led to the Upside Down, and monsters, and sharp Demogorgon teeth.

Steve walked.

He took a deep breath and felt a calmness come over him. He closed his eyes and ignored Joyce as he embraced the deadly and unknown with open arms.

Demogorgons could devour him.

He did not care anymore.

 

His parents were home for some inexplicable reason.

Whatever their plans had been for extending their stay in New York must not have panned out which meant that they were frustrated and annoyed, and going to take it out nitpicking at him. And that meant that he didn’t want to be here.

He used to go to Tommy’s. Or Carol’s. Or Nancy’s.

He didn’t have his car, it was still half-hazardously parked in the school parking lot, and he was numbingly cold. His feet hurt, his chest hurt, and he wanted to just curl up and die in bed.

He bit the blinking button on the answering machine instead.

_Two New Messages._

_Hey, Steve! I forgot to tell you on the phone yesterday, I don’t need a ride home after school today. We’re going on a fieldtrip to that cool zoo in Indianapolis that I was talking about. It’s going to be totally awesome because Veronica loves lizards and we’re buddies, and well, Mom’s yelling at me that we need to leave now. Hope I caught you before you left for school. Sorry._

_Hello, this is Amanda Costello from the Indiana State University’s administrations office. I’m calling regarding-_

Steve deleted all the messages.

It was honestly starting to feel like his life was a joke.

If he didn’t go see his parents then they were going to complain that he was being rude, and was raised better than how he was acting, and he should be grateful, _blah, blah, blah. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit._

He sighed.

He forced himself to walk towards the noise in the kitchen because he couldn’t _deal_ with them complaining at him today. He might just fucking snap if they did, and he might just tell them that they barely fucking raised him anyways. Or he might cry. Or he might slit his wrist with their good knives. _Shut the fuck up._

“Hi, Ma,” He said, trying to sound alive.

She looked up from the stove and he thought that maybe he didn’t achieve even that impossibly low goal but she smiled. She petted back his hair and kissed his temple, “How was school, Stevie?”

“It was great,” He lied. “I’m kind of tired, I’m going to lay down.”

“You’re not going to ask me about my trip?”

Steve didn’t roll his eyes because he didn’t have the energy to, “How was your trip, Ma?”

“It was wonderful, New York City is a fascinating place to be,” She said politely with an undercurrent of something darker. He was supposed to ask her what was wrong but when he didn’t, she told him, “Go say hello to your father first and wash up for dinner. You look filthy. What on Earth were you doing?”

Steve shrugged, “I’ll go say hi to Dad.”

“Stevie, baby,” She called when he was at the doorframe. He couldn’t turn towards her; his hands were shaking. “Are you okay?”

“I’m great, Ma. I’m glad that you’re home.”

Every dinner with his parents felt like he was being interviewed for a job that he never applied for. He had dirt under his nails, and his chest was hollow, and he just sighed when his dad asked him, “How are your college essays going?”

_I applied early admissions to Indiana State to surprise Nancy and I got in. I haven’t told anybody because I’m not going to college._

_I’m not surviving this year._

“They’re coming along,” He said, check-boxing all the right answers in his head. “They’re – they’re good.”

“He was always such a great writer,” His mother told his father, beaming like Steve didn’t peak in that aspect in second grade, like Steve wasn’t lying through his teeth, like they thought that he had any fucking potential. “He should be a writer.”

“It is the only think he has shown any exceptional skill in,” His father replied.

Steve wanted to say, _I fucking hate you guys._

Steve wanted to say, _you make me want to fucking die._  

Steve wanted to say, _I’m not going to college_

“Isn’t that little girlfriend of yours helping you with your essays, the Wheeler girl?” His mother asked and Steve bit his tongue so hard that he could taste blood. “She is such a smart girl, don’t you think?”

“Nancy and I broke up, I told you that.”

“I don’t see why she can’t still help with your essays,” His father said like he couldn’t _possibly_ fucking fathom why Steve maybe wouldn’t want to ask the ex-girlfriend that never fucking loved him to help him because he was too dumb to write a stupid pointless essay.

Steve conceded, he gave in, “Yeah, you’re right, Dad.”

“You can call her later, deadlines are approaching.”

“Yeah, I could.”

“How are Tommy and Carol?” His mother asked because that was the next question in this demented fucking interview. “I haven’t seen them around much.”

 _You’re never here,_ he didn’t say.

 _I haven’t been friends with them in a year,_ he didn’t say

 _I hate you,_ he didn’t say.

He smiled politely and dead, and told her, “They’re working on their college essays.”

And then, just for his own amusement, told his mother that Tommy was applying to Harvard. She got a look on her face like she wanted to be supportive but also, she wasn’t a fucking idiot and knew that Tommy definitely was.

She asked instead, “Did you go see Dr. Marquette?”

“No,” Steve answered. “I think I was just stressed out.”

It was his best lie yet because it was true. He _was_ very stressed out all the goddamn time, it just wasn’t the reason why he had been throwing up across the McDonald’s parking lot.

When he was a kid, he used to get so stressed out and anxious about stupid shit all the time that he would sometimes throw up. His dad used to yell at him about it, and then his mom would yell at his dad because Steve was just a kid and anxiety disorders were apparently a thing that ran on both sides of his family.

Steve always felt like some part of why his parents were never home was because they realized that they fought a lot less when they didn’t have to be around their dumb anxious kid.

He swallowed hard, pushed his plate away.

“Can I be excused?”

His dad ignored his question and said, “There is a business party at Birdseye on Thursday, we are encouraged to bring out children. I would like for you to attend, Steven.”

And Steve said, “I don’t know, Dad, I still feel a little sick.”

His mom told him of a conference in Los Angeles, a nice long weekend that had the potential to turn into a month long gig of university lectures. She told him that they’d be leaving in a few days.

They’d be _here_ for a few days.

He smiled with the taste of bile in his throat, “That’s cool, Ma.”

 

After dinner, Steve scrubbed dirt out from beneath his fingernails in the upstairs bathroom. He washed his hair in the sink and scrubbed the mud off his tennis shoes. He ignored his homework.

He paced the hall for five minutes, for ten minutes, and reminded himself that Mrs. Wheeler’s sleeping pills were in his trashcan. He _could_ just go to sleep.

He could, but he didn’t.

He knocked against the doorframe and asked, “Ma, can we – can we talk?”

She looked up from her desk and her typewriter, and sighed. She sounded stressed out and tired, “Stevie, baby, this is the worst possible time. Is it important?”

_Yes, I’m your son._

_Yes, I’m afraid I’m going to hurt myself._

_Yes, I’m your goddamn kid and you’re a fucking therapist. It’s literally your fucking job description to give a damn._

“Not really, He said. “I guess, I just wanted to talk.”

“Can it wait until the morning then?” She asked him with a sigh, pushing her glasses back up her nose as she already went back to work. “I must finish writing this chapter tonight.”

“Yeah, Ma. Sorry.”

He leaned to press off the doorframe but paused when she spoke, “Baby, come over here.”

He walked over to her desk, leaning against the side of it next to her and let her take his hand, “Are you okay?”

“I’m just-“ He sighed, this was pointless. “I think I’m just stressed out, Ma.”

“You always do this to yourself, stressing yourself out until you’re sick,” She sighed. “Why don’t you go to the community center and swim for a little while tomorrow? That always makes you feel better.”

_I’d literally rather die, Ma._

_Billy Hargrove tried to drown me yesterday._

_I stopped swimming because a girl died in our fucking pool._

_I told you this. You never listen to me._

He sighed.

_Fuck._

_I hate you. I love you._

_Please, help me._

“Yeah, maybe.”

“We could go together,” She suggested, “If I get this chapter done tonight. How does that sound?”

She wasn’t going to remember this in the morning so it didn’t really matter if he said yes or no.

He nodded and let her pet his hair like he hated, and let her call him Stevie like he always asked her not too. He let her feel good about herself while he felt numb, felt hollow.

He dug sleeping pills out of his trashcan and took two.


	13. Chapter 13

There was no subtleness to Billy Hargrove.

He wasn’t gentle hands and well thought out planning. He wasn’t intricate with his harassment, wasn’t clever in his bullying, he just _was_. He was sharp edges and sharper teeth. Everything about him was made to draw blood, to bruise, to claw, and bite, _hurt_ , and break.

He was violence wrapped up in California cool and tight jeans.

He was the essence of vehemence, of vicious impulse, of deadly murderous rage in their _rawest_ forms. He was singular in his destruction and he was destined to destroy Steve.

_I’m going to fucking kill you, Harrington._

Except that he wasn’t.

Steve didn’t know what this was because it was _nothing_.

At this point, Steve thought that Billy was just being mean. It felt more and more like Billy had given into the sadistic edge of his personality and developed a new-found _patience_ , and viciousness, and slow methodical cruelty just for Steve. It felt like this was a psychological game and he’d changed masks.

It left Steve reeling.

This didn’t feel like Halloween anymore, it didn’t even feel like Nightmare on Elm Street. It felt like _Jaws_.

Billy didn’t feel like the unstoppable, unrelenting crescendo of Michael Myers. He didn’t feel like sharp knives, and masks, and brutal nonstop _stalking._ He felt like Jaws, felt ominous and hidden. He _was_ the score that started low, started slow, that tickled up Steve’s chest with dread as it grew in tempo and volume, and proximity, and then _nothing._

He was the shark that Steve could not see.

Steve knew that he was never going to be physically stronger than Billy. He knew that he wasn’t smart enough to beat him with brains and witty one-lines, and he was _never_ going to be good enough or care enough to settle this out on the basketball courts. His own mental stability was probably on shakier grounds than Billy’s has ever been. It didn’t matter where their final showdown happened, Steve was going to _lose_.

He _wanted_ to lose but not like this.

He wanted to be destroyed by big rough hands, to be beaten down into nothing and shattered into bone and ash by hands that hurt, and killed, and split on impact. He wanted to _feel_ in on his skin and in his bones, not in his mind.

Wednesday passed without incident.

Thursday went down with Steve downing warm cafeteria milk and packets of mustard in the parking lot after school before driving the kids home just to get out of going to the Birdseye conference with his father. He’d thrown up in his mother’s winter-dead rose bushes in the front yard and freighted food poisoning, and Billy _still_ hadn’t killed him.

He wasn’t doing _anything_ but keeping his distance.

Steve was still being shoved into his locker in the morning, was still being pushed around gym class but Billy wasn’t sticking around to gloat, or taunt, or sneer. He didn’t have hard insults or biting remarks, wasn’t cutting Steve down with words.

He wasn’t even knocking his books out of his hands in the halls because he wasn’t even _there_ half the time.

He was the almighty eyes of T.J. Eckleburg in Great Gatsby, looming over Steve in his self-made valley of despair, and dust, and broken crowns. Steve felt constantly like he was under the weight of these gigantic blue eyes burning into him but he could never find them.

It was maddening.

Billy wasn’t doing anything but doing _everything_ , and Steve felt kind of like he was going crazy. It felt like a cruel and sick trick was being played on him, like he was being hunted.

He wasn’t sleeping anymore.

He’d lay in bed all night, wide awake and unable to look away from the shadows on the ceiling, from the eerie blue glow from the pool, from the walls that monsters could crawl through. There were no doors to hide behind when the Upside Down wanted in. There was nothing to do but lay there paralyzed, and frozen, and suffocating with fear.

He couldn’t take the pills anymore or he’d take _all_ of them.

He wanted so badly for all of this to just end but he couldn’t _do_ it himself. It wasn’t exactly a fear of dying because Steve felt like he was already, because he could not fear what felt so relieving but – he didn’t know how to explain the enervation that had drained him so completely.

He was too tired to kill himself, he thought almost bitterly, almost hysterically. He almost laughed, almost cried. Life felt like the cruelest fucking joke.

Everything was just _too much_ now.

It was all so hard, and it hurt too much, and no one ever _listened_ to him when he talked because everybody thought he was stupid, and unimportant, and unknowing of true fucking hardship. _They were probably right._

_He came from a rich family, was good looking. He didn’t have a dead daughter, or was tortured in a lab, or lost his best friend because of some dumb idiot wanted in his pants. He should be grateful._

_It wasn’t like his parents ever hit him._

_It wasn’t like he was killed by Demogorgons._

_Shut up._

Shouldn’t what he felt matter too? Shouldn’t _he_ matter? _No._

He couldn’t ask for help because of the spies that were haunting him, because he couldn’t just explain to someone that a hell dimension lived in his backyard, and ate people, and kids moved shit with their minds. He couldn’t explain to anybody that monsters with too many teeth and no faces existed.

The people who knew – Nancy, and the kids, and Hopper, and Jonathan – all had it so much worse and didn’t fucking care about him. No one care about him.

No one listened to him anyways.

He yawned, and blinked, and tried to focus on the geometry lesson in front of him, on the English lesson, on the bright whiteness of snow flurries. He tried to ignore the way he always felt like screaming, and crying, and wanting to die. He coughed.

His eyes flicked back to the board, “Yes?”

“Do you have _any_ opinions on The Great Gatsby?” His English teacher asked in a tired disappointed way. Steve’s eyes flickered back out the window and then to her expectant face. “Well, Mr. Harrington, do you have anything to say?”

 _Yes_. He had a lot of opinions, just none of them that mattered.

Steve didn’t matter.

He wanted to scream.

He didn’t understand why Tom introduced Nick to his mistress. Daisy was Nick’s _cousin_ , why the hell would he _not_ tell his cousin about her husband cheating on her? _Why_ the hell did Nick not tell Daisy that her husband was a cheating piece of shit?

Why did Daisy and Tom seem to forget that they had a fucking kid half the time? Who was taking care of their daughter, why didn’t they love her enough to stay home? Why didn’t Gatsby just go fucking talk to Daisy? Why was Myrtle with Tom, why –  

“Myrtle Wilson got off easy.”

Mrs. Terracini looked at him with surprise on her face. The look shifted to something close to impressed and then she just looked confused, “That’s an interesting perspective, would you like to explain to the class why you think that?”

 _No_. _I don’t fucking matter._

_Myrtle didn’t matter, George didn’t matter. The whole fucking East Egg didn’t matter. Nothing mattered._

“She wasn’t smart enough to realize that she didn’t belong anywhere,” He said, sounding dead, and defeated, and numb. “That, uh, that line about Daisy wanting her daughter to be a fool. Myrtle is a fool because she – like Gatsby, they were never going to belong where they wanted to be, and Tom was never going to leave Daisy so – so maybe it was just _easier_ that she was killed. It – it’d hurt less than…than realizing that she wasn’t important.”

He swallowed hard, “She was lucky that she died.”

Mrs. Terracini blinked at him, chewing on the end of her pen.

Steve turned his eyes back to the windows.

“Do you really think that death is the preferable option there?” She asked curiously, and Steve could feel all thirty pairs of eyes in the room turn towards him. “One could argue that Myrtle was blinded by her own desire to improve her situation. Tom was wealthy and from old money but he treated her as an object instead of a person whereas her husband, George, may have been poor but he loved her.”

 _Maybe love isn’t enough_.

“And remember,” Mrs. Terracini added, “What ended up killing Myrtle was her refusal to accept her situation. She ran into the road because she saw Tom’s car and was struck by Daisy. What are your feelings on that?”

_Daisy did her a favor._

_He knew what it was like to think that you were a part of something special and important, and realizing that you weren’t. He knew what it was like to never be loved, to not be good enough, to never be good enough. _

_Maybe Myrtle realized it to and she wasn’t as stupid, and foolish, and simple as she was written. Maybe she knew the car wasn’t slowing down and that she was going to be hit. Maybe she needed Daisy to kill her just to end the heart ache. _

_Why didn’t Daisy love her daughter?_

_Why did – why were people always dying in pools because of reckless fools?_

He coughed again, and shrugged his shoulders, “Can I be excused? I don’t feel good.”

Maybe he was getting sick.

Late the night before, he’d left the confides of his nightmares and his plaid wallpaper, and he slipped out the sliding backdoors, walking barefoot onto the deck. He let his bat slip from fingers and clattered deafeningly to the thin fluffy dusting of fallen slow. He let the water overtake his feet as he waded into the deep icy water.

He took step, by step, by step until he was neck deep in frozen water, and he breathed, in and out in puffs of white fog. He repeated the actions, he breathed. In and out. And he waited.

And he waited, and waited, and waited, and _nothing_ happened.

The gates were closed. The monsters would not do this for him.

He stayed in the water and the icy cold weather until he couldn’t stand it any longer, and he thought about staying longer. He thought about closing his eyes and curling up in his wet clothes on a deck chair. He thought about taking sleeping pills, and drifting to sleep, and dying a slow death like Barb.

And then he went inside.

He took off his wet clothes and put on fleece sweats, and climbed into bed. He didn’t cry, he felt like he could start bawling his eyes out and never stop but he didn’t. He just – couldn’t do anything anymore except wait for Billy to finish him and he _wasn’t_.

It just felt mean.

Steve was so tired of people being mean to him.

 _Of bullying him, and putting sleeping pills in his hot chocolate, and not fucking killing him_.

The waiting was making him feel paranoid, dredging up all these feelings that he had buried beneath logic and a couple good nights of sleep. He started checking the air vents for cameras in the morning, started checking beneath his car seats for microphones, checking behind his bed, checking his locker. He unplugged the VCR, he did not trust his parents.

The longer Billy waited, the more the minutes and seconds that ticked by ate at Steve until he felt raw, and bitten, and incomplete. He felt like he was filled up and overflowing with this sicky desperate neediness for just – _anything._ He wanted to feel as bad on the outside as he already felt.

It was the same sick pathetic feeling that he used to feel for Nancy’s touch when they got back together. He had just wanted to be with her, to hold her hand and curl up on the couch with movies. He wanted to feel all of her, and taste her pink bubblegum Chapstick, and only talk about how much they loved each other.  

He had hated talking to her because it usually meant fighting about Barb, or Hawkins Labs, or being nice to Jonathan. Fighting always meant her leaving him or asking him to leave.

He used to fear an empty house. He always had.

Steve didn’t need handled with kid gloves. He didn’t need Nancy pretending that she cared, that she gave a shit at all. He didn’t need her watchful gaze or her pressed lips from across the cafeteria, criticizing and judging his every move, categorizing everything she thought was wrong with him.

It kind of made him laugh sometimes, this stupid thought of her at his funeral with posters and shoulder padded blazers, and laser pointers in some big elaborate presentation about all the ways she saw this coming. She’d be right to his very last breath, to the day they put him in the ground.

Steve didn’t need or want any of Jonathan’s overbearingly _loud_ worrying either, couldn’t stand the way it drilled into the side of his head during geometry or suffocated the room. He didn’t need the fucking pamphlets that were mysteriously slipped into his locker about dealing with panic attacks. He didn’t need any lame ass middle school health class diagnosis either, didn’t fucking _need_ anything from anybody.

Except Billy.

He just needed Billy. He needed him to fulfil his threat and his promise, to fucking follow through.

He accepted that this was his end and he _wanted_ it.

Jesus, he never wanted something _more_ than this. He never got what he anything that he wanted so couldn’t he have this? Just this _once_ , could get what he wanted, what he deserved. It wasn’t like he was asking for a lot anyways.

He had braced himself for the fight and the beat down, and all the goddamn pain that would echo and sing inside of him when Billy murdered him. He was prepared to endure the pain until a final blow, he _obsessed over it._

Something would crack in him, or crumble, or collapse. His breathing would slow, or his vision would fade until everything fell into a much awaited _white_. A whiteness so encompassing, and untouchable, and safe. A soft comfortable numb, and then nothing would ever hurt again.

God, he fucking _needed_ this and Billy wasn’t fucking giving it to him.  

The school day passed in an unrememberable blur, and basketball practice followed in suit. He went through the motions, listened to the coach chew him out for skipping and not having his head in the game. He nodded when he was supposed to, answered questions that he hadn’t heard, and ran when the coach told him to do laps.

Steve felt the weight of those lightning blue eyes burn into the back of his head throughout practice but Billy was like a ghost, or Steve was, he could never be certain anymore. It was just that when he was shoulder-checked hard enough to send him to the floor, it was Tommy sneering down at him.

It was Tommy’s chapped lips that curled into a self-satisfying smirk, his face to pull into a freckled-covered sneer. It was Tommy that muttered, “Plant your goddamn feet, Harrington.”

It was exhausting, and frustrating, and Steve wanted to bash his head against the floor until he painted it red.

Coach blew the whistle for the end of practice and called to Steve to stay behind to gather up the equipment as punishment for skipping practice but Steve really wasn’t that dumb. He wasn’t surprised either when Coach asked him where his head was at, “You’re missing baskets and passes that I know you can make.”

Steve breathed out and said, “Sorry, Coach. There’s no excuse for poor playing.”

He shrugged and said, “I think I’m getting sick or something, I’ve been throwing up.”

He sighed, “I’m just _tired_.”

He let Coach scrutinize him and make his own assessment to satisfy his already made decision to not play Steve in the next game. It was almost hilarious how much he didn’t care. He tried to smile and asked if he could go now.

“Yeah, kid, go shower and get some rest.”

“Thanks, Coach.”

He dragged himself into the locker room, into the showers and back to his locker while conversations bounced and carried on around him. He was still at his locker when the showers turned off and conversations spilled out into the locker bay, and the weight of those eyes fell onto his shoulder once more.

He felt exhausted. He felt anxious, felt sick.

He wanted everything to end so badly that it left the taste of chalky sleeping pill residue in his mouth. He couldn’t even muster up a smile when Jerry made the effort in trying to pull him into conversation. It was nice of him but Steve didn’t _want_ to be in the conversation so it happened anyways.

“Was that Carissa Bernard that I saw you talking to in the hallway the other day?” He asked him, as if Steve was going to remember anything that had happened that week. Jerry had this big stupid grin on his face like he thought he knew exactly what happened there, and he was wrong.

Steve had to think about it but he was pretty sure that he was referring to when he went to apologize to Carissa about Dustin at Snowball and she told him that she had a really nice time in his car but he wasn’t really her type. Not that she was really subtle about what she actually meant because Steve was _everybody’s_ type so what she was really saying was _‘It was fun fooling around but that was all you’re really good for so, bye.’_

Steve shrugged.

It wasn’t like he wasn’t imagining Nancy while he was kissing her anyways. It wasn’t like anything these guys thought mattered.

“So, what?” Jerry asked when he offered nothing. “You getting in there or what?”

 Tommy scoffed, “I saw Carissa whoring it out with Martinez yesterday. And anyways, haven’t you heard? Harrington’s doesn’t know how to please a girl.”

Steve ran his fingers through his damp hair and decided not to fix it. Brian laughed from his locker a few down the row, “And you know that, how?”

“Deductive reasoning or some shit,” Tommy shot back, pulling his shirt over his head. “I’m not a fucking idiot like you guys. Just think ‘bout it, yeah. How bad do you have to be between the sheets if Princess Wheeler would rather slum it with a freak like Byers than Hawkins royalty.”

That just _sounded_ like bullshit.

Steve couldn’t believe that he and Tommy were friends half the time.

It was bait that Steve would have rose to on any other day, would have fought again and defended Nancy’s choices, defended himself but he had no _energy_ to it. So, he sighed, and he bit the inside of his cheek until it woke him up, and he thought, _fuck it._

He thought, _fuck Tommy._

He thought, _I fucking made you._

He thought, _you don’t get to be a dick to me._

It had been him and Tommy ever since first grade, and then it was him, and Tommy, and Carol ever since sixth. Then it was Tommy and Carol since seventh, and Steve as their leader, and worrier, and the one that made sure that everything was going to be okay.

He had been the one to be invited to high school parties in eighth grade, to senior parties during freshman year. He was the one that senior girls fawned over, and wanted to kiss, and invited to sit at their lunch tables. He could have dropped Tommy, dropped Carol, and rose through the ranks much faster but he hadn’t. Tommy didn’t get to treat him like shit just because they weren’t friends anymore, he didn’t get to forget all the shit that Steve did for him to be cool.

Tommy might not realize it but he was a fucking leech, and a user, and just as much of a has-been loser as Steve was. He was nothing without someone to latch on to and he doesn’t get to be pissed that Steve wasn’t letting him drain him anymore.

So, Steve sighed and guessed that he had to fucking do this, saying dully, “I didn’t hear any complaints from Carol.”

It wasn’t even a lie.

He and Carol had fooled around a couple time before her and Tommy got really serious and again one drunk summer when they were on a break, but it had the reaction that Steve had expected. Tommy was on him, pushing into him like Steve had insulted his mother.

Steve almost relished the fight except that he _didn’t_ want this one. He sounded so fucking bored when he added, “Didn’t hear anything from your mom either but then again, she had her mouth full.”

Tommy wasn’t even really pushing against him because Tommy wasn’t really a fighter unless he had to be, unless Steve put him in the position that he _had_ to be. Unless he knew that he could win.

They both knew that Tommy could kick Steve’s ass because _everybody_ could kick his ass but also because Tommy had first-hand experience doing it half a dozen times over growing up. Things were different now though.

Everybody had so easily deduced that it was Billy that wrecked Steve’s face so they also deduced that it had been Steve that left the bruise that blossomed over Billy’s jaw and his nose. No one knew what set off that fight, only that Steve and Billy had both come to school looking bruised, and exhausted, and terrible. It meant that Steve was a wild card that Tommy didn’t understand anymore, and a fight that he wasn’t sure that he’d win.

So, he wasn’t going to do shit and they both knew it.

He pressed off the lockers with a sneer, “You’re pushing your luck, Harrington.”

“You’re the one all up on his dick,” A voice said down the row of lockers, locker door slamming shut. Steve felt his heart stumble into his gut, _Billy_. “Ain’t nobody’s fault that your chick is a slut.”

Tommy gritted his teeth but he definitely wasn’t going to do shit about it now. Steve might have been a wild card but Billy wasn’t, and Tommy wanted nothing to do with it so he muttered a half-hearted, “Watch it, Hargrove.”

“Yeah? Not going to do that,” Billy replied with something dark and sinister in the undertone of his voice, it was a fire and the promise of pain, the want of a fight that dropped the temperature in the room ten degrees. “What are you going to do about it, Tommy boy?”

Tommy wasn’t stupid, no one was _that_ stupid except for Steve. Tommy stalked back down to his locker, with a muttered, “Whatever.”

And Steve.

He was so fucking desperate, and needy, and _wanting_ all of this to fucking end violent and bloody, scoffed with all the heat he could muster, “I don’t fucking need you fighting my fucking battles, Hargrove.”

“Is that what I’m doing, Harrington?” Billy barked, demanding from him as his voice dropped in octaves and the temperature around them plunged into an upside down subarctic. “You going to fucking tell me what I’m doing now?”

If Steve was smarter, or sane, or valued his life in any degree that he would have said _no,_ would have offered a half-hearted apology, or left, or breathed but he didn’t. His eyes went blank and bored and he turned his back on Billy like the conversation wasn’t worth his time. He said, “I don’t _care_ what you do, Hargrove.”

Steve wasn’t as dumb as everybody thought he was.

He might not have been book smart, or street smart, or knew how to fight monsters any other way than to hit them straight on but he _knew_ people. He knew how they ticked, and how to disappoint them, how to piss them off.

Billy cared about respect because he was _always_ bitching about it and Max was always bitching about Billy bitching about it. Someone fucked him up a long time ago and made him think that how you got respect was with raised voices and fists.

The air shifted when predators moved, the walls warped and tunnels breathed, and the air got _cold_. It bent and curved, and chilled into his chest with tension as Billy stalked forward. Steve didn’t care.

His father used to hound into him constantly that he should be prepared for all occasions but he’d been talking about school presentations, about business presentations, about how Steve presented himself to the world, not about turning his back on a psychopath destined to kill him. _God_ , there was a sick level of satisfaction in simply turning his back, in being unprepared and ignoring his father’s damn advice.

Billy could blindside him and he most definitely would. Billy fought dirty, and hard, and with vicious promised _murder_. Steve felt relief wash over him when a hand grabbed his shoulder.

Fingers dug deep into the skin there, pressing and clawing until Steve was sure that there would be half crescent moons imprinted into the bone, and then half a second later, he was spun around. His back hit his open locker at an uncomfortable angle, causing the open lock to dig in just left of his spine.

Billy’s tongue licked slowly over his bottom lip, twisting into an open mouth grin. The kind of smile that promised horrible, painful things. _Steve wanted this_.

“You know what, pretty boy?” He asked, scarily low and close, and Steve _wanted_ this. “I’ve been thinking a lot about you recently.”

“I didn’t know you were capable of conscious thought,” Steve replied and was shoved back harder, the lock digging in a little more. Billy’s eyes narrowed and his mouth curled into a snarl, Steve could have laughed but it would have sounded manic, or desperate, or both. “What – what were you thinking?”

The room was nearly silent, deathly still, and Billy’s grin was all edges and jagged corners. His pointed canine’s sunk into his bottom lip as he leaned in close. He laughed something painfully humorless, breathing cigarette and cinnamon flavored gum into Steve’s parted lips, “You’re just too broken to break anymore.”

Steve felt cold.

Steve felt his stomach bottom out.

Steve felt _hurt_.

“What?” He breathed out almost breathless, feeling like he’d just been punched in the stomach, kicked in the ribs. He felt suddenly and horribly crowded, and exposed, and betrayed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Billy just grinned like he was enjoying this moment, basking in how much control he had over _this_ moment. His hand moved from digging painfully into Steve’s shoulder to pressing against his bare chest. He spoke slowly.

He spoke in deliberate and pointed words, each one hitting harder than the last like he was picking the ones that would have the most impact, that caused the most damage, “You confirmed all my suspicions, really did, pretty boy.”

Steve’s mind flashed red, _spy._

He thought, _I told him about Benny, about Bob, about Barb._

He thought, _I let him know just how wrapped up I am in everything._

He thought, _Fuck._

“See now, _King_ Steve,” Billy said, tapping his fingers hard against Steve’s sternum to keep his attention. “I thought, _wow,_ there’s something really fucked up with Harrington at Darlene’s party. Thought the same thing in the pool during gym on Monday but the Byers’ house confirmed it.”

Steve felt a sinking in his gut, “Confirmed what?”

“You’re nothing but damaged goods,” He said honestly, bluntly, _smiling_. It stuck hard and sharp like a hundred tiny knives, like a dinner plate over his head. “No wonder Mommy and Daddy hate you so much that they don’t wanna stick around. It must burn that with all that money, they couldn’t have a son that wasn’t so – _pathetic._ ”

“I – that’s – my parents are home,” He justified weakly and Billy just laughed. It was mocking, and mean, and it hurt.

“Face it, Harrington,” He told him, voice low and vicious as he spoke to him and the room. “I’ll say it real slow so you get it. You’re a pretty face and there’s a lot of pretty to look at in broken things but no one has fun playing with broken toys.”

Steve breathed out slowly.

The words settled inside him heavy and barbed, cutting down deep. He felt crushed with the meaning held in them, felt gutted. This was over.

It had only been a game to Billy.

One that he wasn’t going to follow through with.

Billy must have saw something that he liked in the expression that cracked onto Steve’s face because he grinned, pushing off the lockers as he leaned back.

Steve was so crack, and rundown, and broken that even Billy didn’t want anything to do with him. There wasn’t a fire left in Steve that he could coax and fan into something hotter, and bright, and destructive in its burning. It was just – _Steve_.

There was nothing to _Steve_ , nothing left to destroy so Billy wasn’t interested anymore.

This was it.

It was over and that fucking _hurt_ in all the wrong ways.

Hope was a supposedly bottomless pit because there was always _something_. There were silver linings to all the dark clouds, there was shore when lost out at sea but there was _nothing_ left for Steve if he didn’t have this. Billy saw the way that realization blossomed and bloomed into Steve’s consciousness, and he _liked_ it. It was what _he_ wanted.

Hope was an _allegedly_ bottomless pit and Steve felt like he just found that bottom going at a hundred miles an hour. His eyes burnt and it felt like the air had been knocked out of him. His chest just _hurt._

Bill laughed mockingly and slow, reaching into his jacket pocket for a cigarette. He lit it with the lighter he stole from Steve in the alley behind the arcade, blowing the smoke into his face before he walked towards the door, “Long live the king, Harrington.”

Something kind of cracked in Steve, something painful and broken. It was the last straw of so many last straws, and it – He had to laugh but he couldn’t force himself to do it.  

He didn’t deserve even _this_. He didn’t deserve even to get hurt, he didn’t deserve anything.

He _never_ got what he wanted so why was he surprise now?

He turned back to his locker and finished getting dressed, numb to the silence and the stares as he slipped on his sunglasses even though he wasn’t crying. He just felt empty, and hollow, and – it was like he was a _husk_ of King Steve, or Steve Harrington, of who he was and had been. He felt empty.

He just wanted to go – he didn’t know where he wanted to be but he couldn’t stay here, and he didn’t want to be home. He had nowhere to be, nowhere he was _wanted_. It wasn’t like he could go to Tommy’s, or Carol’s, or Nancy’s.

Billy wanted to hurt him in a way that would hurt the most and he achieved it by holding a mirror up to what Steve really was. Broken. Pathetic. Worthless.

Tommy was running out of the school when Steve was unlocking his car, calling for him as he got into it, and grew smaller in his rearview mirror as Steve drove off. There was only so much Steve could deal with right now and Tommy was too much.

Steve had been the worrier of the three of them. He was the one that made sure that everybody was okay and everything was alright, that no one swept in and took popularity from them. Steve took care of things and Tommy, he used to take care of Steve.

Tommy used to tell him when Steve’s dad was riding his ass, or missing games, and his birthday, and Christmas, and Steve was having trouble wanting to get out of bed, or shower, or eat. He used to sit on Steve’s bedroom floor with liquor from his parents’ expensive wine collection or weed from Tommy’s brother’s room, talking, and talking, and talking about nothing that mattered.

It’d just be the two of them and Steve would never have to pretend to be cool, or happy, or loved. He could just be sad, and Tommy would talk, and he’d tell him that Steve sometimes reminded him of his aunt.

Steve used to scoff, _oh, thanks, man._  He used to laugh, _that means so much to me._ He used to tease _, why are you making me feel worse?_ He used to shove his shoulder and say, _go to hell, Tommy._ And Tommy would always laugh, and shove back, and he’d say, “No, not like that, man. She would get all depressed like this too sometimes.”

Steve would say, “I’m not depressed.”

And Tommy would shrug, “Whatever, man. Maybe you just need to get _laid_.”  

Steve drove home because he had nowhere else to go.

He had said that he would go to the community center with his mother but he had said that on _Tuesday_. He pointed that fact out to her when she brought it up at dinner.

She sighed, and petted back his unfixed hair, and said to him, “Stevie, _of course_ , I said _Friday._ Why on Earth would we go to the pool in the middle of the week? You have got to stop living in that head of yours and start using your common sense.”

If that was the case than Steve would have dropped it.

The problem was that she _hadn’t_.

She didn’t say Friday, she had said _tomorrow_ which was Wednesday. She just didn’t fucking remember and couldn’t just _say_ that she forgot because she was trying to save face with him for no reason. Steve wasn’t six anymore and that wasn’t going to work, he wasn’t stupid.

They had the same stupid face anyways and he already fucking hated looking at it.

He knew that she was lying but he was tired, and exhausted, and everything inside of him just _hurt_. He sighed, and he conceded, and he gave in and gave up, “I must have misheard you.”

She smiled, “Well, there’s no harm done, Stevie.”

His father added, “You need to start paying attention.”

“We’ll go after dinner.”

Steve’s smile resembled a wince more than a grin and he said, _‘Well.’_ He said, _‘Ma, it’s Friday.’_ He said, _‘I’m really busy, and don’t feel well, and I really should be using this time to work on my college essays.’_

His father had scoffed, looking up from the stack of paperwork he had next to his plate for the first time all fucking dinner and got all over Steve’s ass about his follow through. He lectured him on the value of keeping his word, and no son of his _blah, blah, blah._ Steve bit his tongue.

He didn’t say, _you never keep your fucking word._

He didn’t say, _remember when you said that you’d come to the championship finals last year?_

He didn’t say, _remember when you said that we’d spend my birthday together but you and Ma went to London instead?_

He didn’t say, _Billy Hargrove doesn’t follow through so why aren’t you yelling at him?_

He didn’t say, _I fucking hate you so goddamn much._

He smiled and he swallowed down his words like blood and bile, and he gave in. He conceded, he stopped fight. He gave up, “You’re right, Dad. I’m sorry.”

So, they were going.

It was a whole goddamn family affair to the fucking Hawkins Wellness and Fitness Community Center to swim in their stupid community pool. As if his parents actually wanted to spend their evening with old ladies in ankle weights fucking doing water aerobics and their own dumbass son. As if their Friday night was not complete unless there were snot nosed kids screaming their heads off every ten seconds.

God, like this wasn’t just about them being the absolute worst all the fucking time.

He hated them.

He hated them, and Billy Hargrove, and the government. And he fucking hated the fucking pool. They should know that. If they were so fucking smart then they would have figured it out by now.

The whole building stunk of chlorine, sweat, and the distinctive burn of rubber machinery. The sound of basketballs bouncing on polished floors, of tennis balls and squeaking shoes, and his feet pounding down on exercise machines echoed into his skull, and into his chest, and Steve’s mind flashed with memories.

He remembered, _you’re just too broken to break anymore._

He remembered, _chug, chug, chug._

He remembered, _Barb, you’re bleeding._

He fucking _hated_ this place.

He hated his parents and their stupid goddamn face along the front entrance hall, lined up proud with the other donors that got this place built. He hated the bright lights, and the noise, and waiting with a dreaded anticipation for those lights to flicker, for monsters to crawl through the wall.

He forced himself to blink, to take a breath.

He was shaking. He told himself that he swam in gym class, that he crawled into his pool in the dead of the night. He told himself that Billy wasn’t here, that he wanted nothing to do with him now, that the gates were closed and the Upside Down was far away. He told himself that he was too broken for anybody or anything to want him.

He was shaking and he reminded himself that it was _thirty-four degrees_ outside the fogged up windows. He told himself that it made sense that he was cold, that _all_ he was, was cold. He was shaking and his mother asked with all the concern and worry of a Saturday morning PSA, “Stevie?”

He shook his head and wrapped his arms around himself, curling his shoulders in as he told her that he was just cold. His voice sounded far away and upside down, and he could _taste_ chlorine, and fire, and toxic breathing tunnels. He shook his head because he knew that was not right, he shouldn’t still be tasting charred Demogorgon flesh.

He felt a hand on his arm that he doesn’t quite recognize as his mother because it _only_ made sense for it to be Jonathan when he felt this bad already. No one else saw him as consistently at his low points as Jonathan fucking Byers.

Steve doesn’t realize that he was already being brought over to sit down when he said, “I think I’m going to sit down for a bit.”

He lied without a reason or a purpose, “I think I’m getting sick.”

He lied, “I’m just tired.”

He lied, “I want to go home.”

He doesn’t have an excuse when they got home and his parents weren’t really asking for one. He let him mother lead him wordlessly upstairs, let her cradle his face in her soft hands, and he told her the truth. He let the words spill from his lips and didn’t try to stop them.

He told her that the last time he saw Barb was out his bedroom window. She was sitting on the diving board of their pool, she was supposed to be going home but then she was just missing, just dead.

He told her that it was his fault because he was supposed to make sure that everything was alright and that everybody was okay, and he’d fucked up because it _wasn’t_. A girl died because he was careless, and dumb, and didn’t make sure that everybody was inside and safe.

Everything sucked and everybody hated him, and he just felt _broken_ since Nancy broke up with him, since he got beat up at the Byers’ house. He was so fucking _scared_ all the time, “I don’t want to be scared anymore.”

His voice broke and his eyes felt horrible, and she held him close enough that he couldn’t breathe. She petted his hair, and called him Stevie, and put him in bed. She tucked his sheets around him and pressed a single kiss to his forehead like she never did.

She whispered to him, “Rest, baby. Go to sleep.”

He closed his eyes and freighted sleep, listening to her soft footsteps down the hall and the creaking of the floorboards as she stood from the bed and walked to her office. He listened to the click of her typewriter as she started to write.

Nancy told him once that she pointed a gun in his face – _You have five seconds to get out of here… I’m doing this for you… three… two…_ \- because she loved him, she didn’t want him to get hurt. His mother always said that if she didn’t love him than she wouldn’t write about him.

She always said that the opposite of love was indifference.

She always said that there was _something,_ that there was hope.

Nancy _didn’t_ love him and she never did, and she still pointed a gun at him. The opposite of love wasn’t indifference, it was fucking vengeance, and torture, and mean fucking words. There was no hope, there wasn’t _something_ left and writing about him didn’t mean a _fucking_ thing.

She was already starting on new paragraphs.

Steve wondered bitterly how _Colin, age 18_ was supposed to cope with getting his ex-girlfriend’s bed friend killed.

He imagined the answer was, _poorly._

 

His parents were concerned which was laughable.

They’d never been so concerned as to stay home, as to call him or check in. They’d never been so concerned as to fucking pretend to _care_ about him, to treat him as something other than a disappointment, a failure, as their fucking source material.

His hair was lackluster and dirty. It was falling into stringy waves that he couldn’t be bothered to tame it anymore with Farrah Fawcett spray, couldn’t be bothered to wash it half the time. He wasn’t sleeping and it was showing on his face in sunken cheeks and red-rimmed eyes.

He was just tired. He was _finished_.

He was just – _done._

He was too tired to keep up the pretenses that he was still their handsome son. He couldn’t be that for them anymore, he couldn’t be King Steve. He could pretend that he was still alive but he didn’t have the energy to be convincing about it.

He tried to animate his face into a smile at the kitchen table.

It was offensively early, and _Saturday_ , and no one should be up this early pretending that they liked uncooked eggs. Dad had some phone conference, and Ma was just awake, and Steve hadn’t slept a wink going on two days now. He bit into a piece of burnt toast and told his mother that breakfast was _egg-tastic._

She didn’t look convinced as she sipped her coffee and Steve sipped his. They revisited what happened yesterday, Steve rephrased a lot of the same shit that he had gave as excuses, and she _still_ wasn’t convinced, “Stevie, what is this truly about?”

 _I want to die,_ He doesn’t say.

 _I don’t want to kill myself but I don’t want to be alive,_ He doesn’t say.

 _I don’t know how to be anybody that someone would love anymore so I don’t want to be anyone,_ He doesn’t say.

_Everything hurts._

He took a breath and he smiled, and he told them that he quit the swim team, that he threw away the chance at all those scholarships that scouts spoke of at the start of junior year.

“College is expensive, Steven, it cost money,” He fathered sighed, not bothering to look away from his newspaper. “You know that.”

Steve yawned, scrapped his breakfast into the trash before telling his parents, “I’m going back to bed.”

He threw away the acceptance letter to Indiana State and crawled back into bed. He was never going to college anyways.

The clock on the wall ticked by maddeningly. Hour, after hour, minute by minute, by minute… _11:23, 11:24, 11:31,_ the knocking on the door did not stop. There was no reprieve, no sign of it stopping. Steve sighed, and yawned, and he pulled himself out of bed.

His parents were inexplicitly not home when he dragged his feet down the stairs, feeling sleepless, exhausted, and drained. All he wanted was to sleep so, of course, he couldn’t have that either.

There wasn’t a note on the fridge or the living room table, no messages on the answering machine. It wasn’t _that_ unusual that they forgot to tell him that they were leaving again.

It shouldn’t hurt as much as it did.

He sighed.

He checked the time on the stove and the weather channel, turned on the coffee machine and wished that he’d die of sleep deprivation already before he walked to the front door. He sighed to himself, something exhausted and long suffering, as the knocking continued.

“Dude, why do you _never_ answer your phone?” Dustin complained, already pushing his way into the house, tracking snow and sludge into the front hall. Steve noted Dustin’s bike was disposed of on his front porch before he turned to critical eyes staring at him, “Your mom said _four_ hours ago that you’d call me back when you got out of bed which is bullshit. If you were asleep that long than you wouldn’t look this much like prehistoric dinosaur shit.”

Steve just blinked.

Dustin was a lot to handle a lot of the time.

“I thought you were going to your dad’s this weekend.”

“I was _supposed_ to, Steve,” Dustin said, sounding a little bitter about it but he was rolling his eyes so Steve wasn’t going to press it. “But he’s on call all weekend _again_ , apparently. And like, we’re supposed to get a lot more snow this weekend so Mom said that it’s not safe to drive all the way out there so will you get _dressed_. Jesus.”

“Why?” Steve asked. “I’m not – I hope to fucking _God_ above us that you don’t think I’m taking your ass out to your dad’s.”

“What? No, that’s – Jesus, _Steve,_  that is the dumbest thing you’ve ever thought I meant about anything and you thought I was putting soap in your car once,” Dustin scoffed, rolling his eyes dramatically. “No, you’re driving us to the arcade.”

“Us?”

“Yes, Steve, _us_. All of our moms said that they weren’t driving in the snow and it’s cold as _Hoth_ out there so I need you to hurry up so we can pick up everybody else.”

“I-“ Steve started but stopped.

Dustin rode his bike here and they lived at least a twenty minute drive from each other and that was without traffic. The arcade was literally closer to him, and Mike, and Lucas, and probably Max, and – Steve just wanted to sleep. He wanted to _try_ to sleep.

Dustin groaned and his shoulders slumped forward at the look on Steve’s face, “We already agreed to by you ice cream at the diner for driving us, I swear.”

He was going to stop driving the kids around.

He kept telling himself that he was going to stop but Dustin kept getting in his car after school, and kept talking about Veronica, about lizards, and he’d _just_ watched Space Odyssey and he _needed_ Steve to understand that he understood the ending _way_ more than Mike did. He had to explain the ending to Steve before someone else tried to corrupt his mind with their _wrong_ theories.

He monopolized the conversation and Steve, he still drove him around.

Steve was going to tell him soon. He’d tell him today because none of them actually want him around, or like him, or care if he was alive or dead. They wouldn’t even tell him if he was in the party or not.

But – but Dustin was _here,_ and his face was red from the cold, and he was squeezing his hands together like the cold was making them ache as they warmed up. Steve nodded and said, “Let me get you hot chocolate or something.”

“ _Steve_ , we need to go soon,” Dustin complained but followed him into the kitchen. “It’s not like you have anything better to do, right? I’m like, you’re only friend… that was a joke, you were supposed to laugh.”

Steve should say no.

_No. I’m not your fucking babysitter._

_No. I’m not your driver._

_No. stop using me, I have feelings._

_Please. Help me._

He was going to say no.

“Yeah,” He breathed out. “Sure, whatever. I want a chocolate sundae.”

“ _Deal!”_

He drove to Mike, Lucas, Max, Will’s houses. He spoke, and smiled, and kept his sunglasses on as he talked to mother, after mother, after mother, after mother about how he would watch them and make sure that they didn’t freeze to death.

He breathed in, he breathed out.

He shoved his hands in his jacket pockets as the kids ran around, helping Will find his fleece gloves and snow boots. He sighed, he smiled, he said, “Hi, Mrs. Byers.”

The TV was on low and she looked tired as she smiled up at him. There was such a softness to her eyes, and her smile, and no pity, he felt like crying, like sobbing, like asking her to fix him.

He told her, “Uh, look, I think like – you know, I’ve been stressed out about _college_ and I – what I said to you about, well, what I said was out of line. I’m sorry.”

Her smiled got impossibly softer and she rested her hand on his jacket sleeve, squeezing it a little, “I understand, Steve. You don’t have to apologize.”

He did.

He actually really did because otherwise, he was just an asshole and he wanted to be better than that.

His smile evened out into a straight line as he pressed his lips together, swallowing hard and nodding. He wanted to say, _my heart hurts so much all the time, I’m so tired, I’m scared that you wouldn’t be able to help me if I asked._

He shrugged his shoulders and nodded his head again as the kids filed out of Will’s room, “I’ll have them back in a few hours.”

“Steve,” She said when he turned to leave, her hand resting loose over his wrist again, “If you ever need anything, my door is always open.”

He could have made a joke about her screen door barely being on its hinges but he didn’t. His voice was barely there when he whispered, “I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few things: 
> 
> (1) Absolutely thank you to everybody that commented on the last chapter. I didn't feel all that great about it so it was really appreciated to hear that people liked it. 
> 
> (2) I've read The Great Gatsby twice, in 2013, and have not touched the book since, and I did not review anything when writing Steve and his teacher's analysis of Myrtle so if that's screwy than it's on me. 
> 
> (3) Also, if this chapter felt like it ended at a weird spot, it totally did. I had intended on covering more but it got too long and I was running out of time to really develop the rest of it so, of course, until next time.


	14. Chapter 14

_Maybe_.

Heaven and hell didn’t matter, that they were a neither here nor there type of thing. There was no destination to arrive at, no staircases or highways paved with good intentions that would lead you there. It was nothing that you carried with you.

There was no resting ground.

There was no _rest_.

All there was, was purgatory.

Maybe, Steve could not be laid to rest. Maybe he couldn’t breathe, or sleep, or die until he atoned for his sins and his mistakes, for all his wrongdoings.

Maybe he was just destined to drive around a car full of monster-seeking brats, and feel devastatingly heartbroken over Nancy, and fight literal and actual monsters while disappointing his parents and getting innocent girls killed in his pool. Maybe it was forever.

He was an _idiot_.

He never learned a lesson.

He was never going to atone for anything because he was always fucking up and making things worse, he was always breaking things, and freaking out, and reacting without thinking. He was _too_ stupid to do anything right so he would always be here. Nothing would change.

Billy wouldn’t kill him, _couldn’t_ kill him until he deserved it and Steve. He never deserved anything.

He wanted to laugh something horrible and cruel, something dead because _nothing_ mattered, he didn’t matter. He wanted to turn the wheel sharply and skid on ice, and fucking put his steering wheel through his chest. He couldn’t _do_ anything that mattered because he was dying but not dead.

He was fucking _exhausted_.

He was too exhausted to live, to pretend that he was even alive, to _sleep_. He was too fucking tired to figure out how to atone for things that could never be forgiven. He _killed_ someone, he was the direct line to Barb dying.

How was he supposed to get forgiveness for that?

How was he supposed to _live_ in his skin when all he wanted to do was rip it off?

He couldn’t say _no_ to Dustin, couldn’t say _save me_ to Joyce, or _help me_ to Hopper. He couldn’t say _please take me back_ to Nancy, _love me, please_. He couldn’t _scream_ , or breathe, or cut his wrist and bleed out in his swimming pool because it didn’t _matter._

He sighed.

He needed to calm down.

He needed sleep but he wasn’t going to get that.

“It’ll be like _ten_ minutes, at most.”

The words were repeated with an increasing time interval each time. It’d be two minutes, five minutes, _‘you know, maybe you should just wait because it’s kind of cold out there’_ and _‘No, it’d be dumb for him to wait eight measly minutes, Dustin.’_ So, it’d be ten minutes. 

“You don’t have to wait around for us, you can just _go_ if you want to do that. No one is _forcing_ you to leave. You could hang out and play games if you wanted.”

“He doesn’t want to hang out with us, Dustin. Jesus.”

“ _Shut up_ , Mike! Who fucking asked you?”

Purgatory was an endless loop of opportunities to fix your own mistakes, to relive your mistakes over, and over, and over until you owned up and atoned. Steve was never going to do that because he knew that he didn’t _deserve_ it.

He was never getting out.

Nothing mattered.

He said dully, vacantly, “Okay.”

There was a mitten-covered hand on his shoulder and Steve unwittingly tightened his grip around the steering wheel, gritted his teeth, forced himself to breathe as Dustin continued on, “We’ll bring it to you.”

Dustin had, at some point, taken up the role of mediator between him and the rest of the party. It really only served to highlight just how much they didn’t want him around, the divide that was being built up between them.

Steve tried not to be hurt by that because he _wanted_ them to leave him alone, wanted to get out of this cycle of monster fighting and government conspiracies. He grounded through his teeth, “I _heard_ you, I know.”

He was _only_ doing this because Dustin had showed up at his house, because he wanted something sickly sweet and cold, because he _needed_ to eat. He was going to stop driving any of them, he was going to fade out like they wanted.

He wasn’t _in_ the party anymore and they were being really nice to him by not telling him. It would just _hurt_ too much to tell him, and he might do something dumb like cry, or beg, or sob that the party was all he had left.

It’d be awkward and this way, no one had to deal with that. It was – it was _better_ this way.

So, Dustin was an arbiter, and they were all pretending like this was normal, like this wasn’t the last time Steve was going to do anything for them.

“Ae you absolutely _sure_ that you don’t want us to buy you a cup of coffee instead?” He asked. “It’s freezing out and you’re kind of just wearing a jean jacket, which is dumb because there’s a hole in it. And because you really look like rat shit that’s been frozen in liquid nitrogen, dude.”

There was a beat of silence and then the backseat erupted into agreements and noise, and shoving each other, _“Thank you!_ I thought I was the only one that thought that.”

“No, it’s definitely true. He didn’t even _fix_ his hair.”

“And the bag under his eyes look like they have their own bags.”

“He’s like _ghostly_ pale, too.”

“Are you getting sick, Steve?”

Steve sighed, tapping his fingers along the steering wheel so hard that he could feel his fingernails bend on impact. It was starting to hurt so he was starting to feel something other than numb. He didn’t quite snap but it was a near thing, _“No._ I’m not sick. I just want a sundae because I was _promised_ one.”

The backseat fell into a moot silence before crackling into whispers, and Dustin was nudged again, _“Steve.”_

Steve bit back an exasperated sigh and rolled his eyes. He was so fucking tired already and his head was starting to ache from the noise, and the pretenses that they all had up, and having to fucking _think_ , and talk, and be a person.

He gritted his teeth and didn’t say a word until he found a place to park in the mostly empty arcade parking lot. He turned the car off before turning to all five pairs of judgmental and overly critical gazes on him, “ _What?”_

“You look like you’re about to fall asleep right now,” Dustin pointed out, like he wasn’t the one that _dragged_ Steve out of his fucking bed when he was _trying_ to sleep.

Steve pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth and breathed sharply out of his nose so he didn’t scoff, or snort, or fucking _snap_ that he would rather be sleep deprived in his own fucking bed than driving all their ungrateful geeky fucking asses to the arcade in four inches of snow. He should have slammed the door in Dustin’s goddamn face after he pounded on it for five minutes straight.

He could possibly _be_ asleep right now and they’re going to complain about his appearance? Complete and utter bullshit.

Instead, he clenched his hands into fist in his lap and bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood. This was the last time. He wasn’t driving them anymore.

Dustin sighed when he didn’t offer him anything, and rolled his eyes like Steve was the annoying one here, “Okay, well. You can go to the diner and I’ll bring you the money after we convert out cash to quarters. That way everybody pays an even amount and no one bitches about it.”

According to Dustin, Mike has been in a mood because El was ignoring him or something. No one really knew because El was ignoring _all_ of them and Mike wasn’t talking about it.

Steve didn’t really fucking care. He just wanted a sundae.

“What part of any of that did you think I was too stupid to understand so you felt the need to repeat it _four_ times?” He asked tiredly, ignoring Mike’s snort of _‘all of it.’_ “I got it, okay? You’re buying me some fucking ice cream, not coaching me through brain surgery. You shitheads have two goddamn hours to play games while I write a paper. Got it?”

He waited a beat and then demanded, “I need to hear it.”

“We got it, _Jesus_. This isn’t a play in some stupid sports game.”

“You can all lose your fucking attitudes too or you can call your moms to pick you up,” He snapped at them. “I don’t have to fucking put up with this so get out of my car and go.”

“Way to go, Mike, he’s mad at us now.”

“That’s why Dustin does all the talking, Mike.”

“It’s not my fault that he’s temperamental.”

“Whose fault is it that you’re an _asshole_.”

Steve ignored the arguing that spilled out of his car, patting down his pockets for a pack of cigarettes that he knew that he didn’t have. He couldn’t even remember the last time he _bought_ cigarettes.

He gave up the search once the kids had filed past him and into the arcade, as their bitching faded and faded, until it was just him and cold Indiana wind. He turned on his heels and walked the half block it took to get to the diner.

Most of the morning regulars had left by now and the cold had kept most adults at home. It was just teenagers that were stupid enough to be driving around in this kind of shitty weather, so it was loud. It was loud, and busy, and Steve sunk down in a booth in the back where he knew the heaters made it almost unbearable to be.

The heat sunk in through his jacket and into his bones, relaxing him enough to take a breath. It turned quickly into a yawn that couldn’t be stifled, _god_ , he was tired.

He waited.

Ten minutes, fifteen. Steve ordered his own sundae from the waitress with the pretty blonde hair and the flirty smile, that read him the daily specials even though he could read the sign.

Twenty minutes, he thanked her when she returned. Thirty minutes, and he contemplated the quarry.

He let his eyes slide shut for a second, let his mind fall back into long spring days and unbearable summer heat, in the way the water at the bottom of the quarry looked black from a distance and blue up close. For a moment, he could imagine the water lapping over his feet, trudging into the deep and diving deeper and deeper because Tommy’s older brother swore that there were skeleton bones at the bottoms.

His mind swirled and tumbled with all the retold and rehashed memories of ghost tales and urban legends of sad pretty girls and returning soldiers that stood on the cliff’s edge, despondent and dejected, and jumped to their end against the break of unforgiving water surface tension.

He thought about monsters.

He thought about make-out peak, and staying up all night once just to watch the sunrise. He thought about Nancy, loving her and losing her, and all the ways that he had screwed that up. He thought about Barb.

He thought about winter cold air whipping against his face and snow-heavy clouds overcast for as far as he could see. He thought about rolling all the windows down in his BMW, and freezing, and pushing down the gas pedal as far as it would go. He thought about _Sweet_ blaring out of the radio with a manic crazed beat, and taking his hands off the wheel, letting his head fall back against the headrest and closing his eyes.

He thought about how _good_ it felt to give up, how _easy_ it was, how _natural_. He thought about free falling and sudden stops. He thought about drowning and how he _deserved_ for it to be slow.

But none of it mattered.

He could not escape Hawkins, couldn’t escape purgatory.

All he could do was wait. And blink.

He blinked again, offering up a sleepy smile to the waitress standing at his table. He finally got a good look at her nametag – _Emilia A._ with a good star sticker stuck to the plastic. She smiled down at him with an amused look, “Can I get you anything else, sugar? Maybe a little pick-me-up?”

Steve was pretty sure that Emilia A. was Emilia Armstrong, who graduated high school a couple years ago and was certainly not old enough to be calling him _sugar_. He just blinked at her, getting another flirty giggle, “You’re looking beat.”

He was _beat_ , straight into the goddamn floor.

He laughed as best he could with her and shrugged his shoulders, “A milkshake sounds like it’d be dynamite right now.”

“It’s a little cold for all this ice cream,” She hummed, untangling her pen from where it rested behind her ear. “Don’t you think?”

_Haven’t you heard? Nothing matters._

_We’re in purgatory, baby._

“It’s never too cold for ice cream,” He offered back flatly, getting another flirty laugh from her. “And, uh, a basket of fries, if you wouldn’t mind. Thank you.”

He let his smile slip from his face as she walked away and pulled out whatever textbook he had in his backpack to look busy. He opened it to a random page and stared down at it, almost unseeing.

He could feel himself start to blank out, feeling it come over him in a comforting blanketed numbness. He didn’t fight the current pulling him under even though he knew that he should, he couldn’t even bring himself to care.

He wasn’t sure how much time lapsed when he spaced out but when he blinked, all that was left of his sundae was a mashed-up banana at the bottom of the bowl and he was halfway through his milkshake. He lived his life mostly on autopilot anyways.

He blinked again, notice Dustin standing at his table. He looked disappointed so Steve asked, “What?”

“Are you actually dumb?” He asked exasperated, rolling his eyes up to the heavens. “Like shit, Steve. I know that old people get dementia and stuff but we _just_ said that we were going to get you a sundae.”

 _An hour ago,_ Steve thought. _I can’t sit in a diner during lunch hour and not buy something for over an hour._

He swallowed a mouthful of mint chocolate chip milkshake and said plainly, “Oh, yeah.”

Dustin sighed like Steve was inconveniencing him, like it was _Steve_ that dragged his ass out of bed with the promise of ice cream and then didn’t fucking buy him ice cream, “Can you say that I got you one so I can keep everybody’s quarters?”

“Sure.”

“Awesome!” Dustin grinned, slipping into the booth across from him. “You sure that you don’t want to come play? I could let you win at air hockey if you wanted.”

“I need to write this paper.”

It was a lie.

Steve was pretty sure that his Gatsby paper wasn’t due for another two weeks and he was almost positive that he wasn’t going to write it, and the textbook he had open was for his geometry class anyways. Dustin could probably tell he was lying because he said, “Well, it’s _Saturday_ , Steve. You can do that stuff tomorrow.”

Steve should tell him that he wasn’t driving him around anymore. He should say that he was so tired that fucking _sitting_ and eating ice cream was exhausting him, that he wanted his fucking bed. He should say that he felt sick, that he felt dead, that Billy wasn’t going to kill him anymore so he – he didn’t know what to _do_.

He swallowed tickly, and smiled thinly, and felt too warm, and cracked, and damaged. He told him, “I _can’t.”_

Dustin sighed.

“We’re friends, aren’t we, Steve?” He asked, sounding tired and too grown up. Steve hated when he was like that, too old for his age.

Jesus, all Steve worried about when he was thirteen was girls and looking cool, not dumbass eighteen year olds.

Billy was so fucking _wrong_ because it still very much felt like there was something inside of him that was _pressing_ , and pressing, and creating a ton of pressure to crumble and break down what was left of him. He _didn’t_ know the fucking answer.

He didn’t know if he was in the party, or if anybody liked him. He didn’t know if he was ever going to get over Nancy, if he was allowed to be angry with her, with Jonathan, with the world. He didn’t know if he was ever going to be okay again but the answers all felt like _no_.

Dustin was a sweet kid, a dorky kid that cared too loudly and was too passionate, too curious for his own good, and he was _nothing_ like Billy. He wasn’t like Billy, _couldn’t_ be like him, but this still felt like Steve was just being set up to be hurt, to be humiliated, to be crushed.

If felt like if he answered than he was opening himself up to be mocked, and laughed at, to have his wounds kicked until they were bloody and bleeding.

It felt like the verbal equivalent to Billy digging his fingernails into his shoulder, and shoving him, and laughing low and humorlessly, and _mean_ into his face. It felt like sneering and being told that he was too damaged to be useful, to be _bullied_.

Steve couldn’t _take_ that from Dustin. He couldn’t take whatever the eighth grade nerdy equivalent of being told that he was useless, and stupid, and broken beyond repair.

He couldn’t _talk_.

He couldn’t force his head up from his textbook, couldn’t uncement his jaw from the clench it was in, and he couldn’t fucking breathe again. His chest was feeling that too familiar tightness, and heaviness, and like he was heaving but he wasn’t.

Breathing in the Upside Down had felt like this, had felt _wrong_.

Even stifled by his bandana, the air had felt strangely weighted and heavy on his tongue once they got in the tunnels. It felt _wet,_ and hot, and slick down the back of his throat. It felt coated in a thin layer of film, felt sticky, palpable enough that you could _chew_ it.

It tasted like every hangover he’d ever experience, funeral he’d been too, and dirty copper metal. Steve had never been sure if it was the concussion or panicked paranoia that made it feel like the Upside Down was _crawling_ down his throat, sinking its teeth into the back of his esophagus and making itself a home inside of his lungs.

Mike had said once when Steve had stayed over for dinner at the Wheelers that Will was sick _again_ that week, that he seemed to get a lot of upper respiratory infections since he was lost in the woods. Steve just knew that they were all going to end up with some Agent Orange style disease. He _knew_ it.

Maybe that was what was wrong with him.

Maybe he was just cancerous and tumorous, and it was changing up his brain chemistry. He’d had heard once on some early morning talk show that his mother was watching, a woman had a brain tumor that was growing inside of her head, multiplying with devastating speed, spreading and infecting her until she was almost somebody else.

The Upside Down could be morphing him into a monster, changing him until he was nothing but rows of teeth. He didn’t know why _that_ felt preferable to the possibility that he was just depressed, or broken, or had PTSD.

Maybe he was _fine_. Maybe he was just paranoid.

He _was_ paranoid but –

The Upside Down _had_ changed him and he couldn’t deny that when it showed on his face. It had hollowed him out and killed his future, and his relationship, and his will to _want_ to fucking live. It was _only_ happening to him.

The kids seemed for, the most part, fine. Nancy was happy, Will was getting on, and even _El_ was getting along well so… Steve knew that he wasn’t special so what he was, was weak.

Steve blinked when he heard a soft sigh.

When he looked up, Dustin was tapping his fingers on the table before sliding out of the booth, “Well, uh, Steve. When you’re done with your homework or if you want some help then – you know where we are, okay?”

Steve didn’t look up and Dustin didn’t move, only leaned in closer, “It’d be really great if you came and played, even if you’re not any good.”

Dustin sighed one last time as Steve scribbled in the margin of his textbook and then turned on his feet, his squeaky snow-wet footsteps audible across the diner. Steve didn’t look up until he heard the ding of the bell over the door, feeling like he could finally breathe but even that was shattered.

His breath caught in his throat, choking him on it.

Steve was seized with a fear he hadn’t felt since Billy Hargrove in the Byers’ living room, since the Upside Down, since Demogorgons coming through the fucking wall.

Dustin slipped out the door just fine, holding it open for a woman in a raincoat. Her black hair was pulled back in a tight manner, her dress pants beneath her rain coat were tailored and tucked into fashionable snow boots, and Steve _knew_ her.

He recognized her as the woman outside of the Wheeler’s house when he was going to talk to Hopper. He _couldn’t_ breathe.

He just – _stopped_.

Everything about him just froze, and stopped, and fell out of time and into the _upside down,_ into labs and experiments, and Ronald fucking Reagan torturing him. _Spies_. He told Billy enough, he hadn’t been careful.

He was _fucked._

He couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t be alive anymore and he couldn’t die. Life was so fucking _cruel_ , and mean, and unfair. It was just bad thing after bad thing, after bad thing, and he was sick of it.

Steve was only going to be able to be pushed so far against the edge before he went over it. He _didn’t_ want to go over.

He didn’t know what would happen if he went over.

Okay, he hadn’t been as careful as he should of. _Fine_.

Fine. He let a few things slip, helped connect him to too many people but he always looked for microphones and microchips, for trackers and bugs. He took more precautions than anybody else and that should count for something.

His eyes followed the woman over to the counter at the bar, watched her talk to the waiter there and take a stool. He watched her spin around on the stool, looking around the room. Her eyes rested on him for too many seconds before she turned back to the counter, and Steve’s stomach _twisted_.

His stomach curled violently in on itself, knotting up so tight that it _hurt_. He was struck with an all-encompassing _knowing_ , with a sickly sugary sweet realization as he looked down at his sundae bowl and his half-empty milkshake, and he _knew_.

He’d read enough dime-store spy novels, had seen enough bad movies, had _expected_ this so often now that he felt horribly stupid for not realizing it sooner. He was _chipped_.

They – _god,_ of course, who else was in their cahoots? His parents, Billy, the raincoated woman that just _knew_ that he was going to talk to Hopper, that he was going to be at the Wheelers. It only made sense that they’d put a tracker in his ice cream because Steve didn’t eat school lunch, barely ate anything that his mother cook.

They put a tracker in his ice cream and now it was _in_ him.

He felt like gagging. He felt sick. He had to – “Excuse me.”

Steve felt numb getting to his feet, numb to panic, to fear, to anything other than the overwhelms sense that he was going to be sick. He brushed passed Emilia and her flirty smile, walked passed people that called for _‘Harrington,’_ and didn’t stop his fast-paced walk until he pushed open the door to the boy’s bathroom.

The room felt too small, felt damp, and he could taste burnt flesh and toxic Upside Down even though he _knew_ it wasn’t there. The room felt _alive,_ and his mouth tasted like metal, and blood, and microchipped ice cream.

He pushed into a stall and felt even more like the world was closing in on him, like something was eating up all the space, and the air, and was going to eat him too. He breathed in harshly and gagged on it, dry heaving nothing.

There were tears seeping from his closed eyes, slipping down his face. His mouth felt overly wet, his throat too closed to swallow. When nothing happened but panic clawing and tearing apart his insides, when all he could taste was blood, he shoved his fingers down his throat, bring up the content of his stomach.

He nearly collapsed on shaky knees after the third time, spitting the vile taste of mint and stomach acid into the toilet.

His eyes were watering and his nose was running, he couldn’t make himself throw up again. He didn’t have anything else in him to bring up and he couldn’t _see_ microchips in the vomit so it – _didn’t exist._

So, he was paranoid.

Or, it was still inside of him.

He’d never felt this fucking lost before. He’d never felt this stupid, or low, or pathetically helpless as he currently did. He didn’t know how to make this better and honestly, he didn’t know if he even wanted to try anymore.

He pressed his lips together, feeling a barely suppressed sob shudder through his whole body. His breathed out harshly through his nose and almost jumped out of his skin when there was a fist against the stall door, and then again when the door hit his back because he hadn’t locked it.

“Harrington.” Steve closed his eyes, leaning back against the door until it slammed shut and didn’t move. “Steve, come on.”

He wiped his eyes on his sleeve and spit in the toilet again, managing to say in a voice that sounded empty despite everything he was feeling, “Go away.”

“ _Steve_.”

Steve supposed that the universe was throwing him a well-deserved bone because it wasn’t Jonathan for once, wasn’t Dustin, or Nancy, or anybody that matter. “Fuck off, Tommy.”

“Hey, you’re the one that went running like a bat out of hell in here,” He scoffed. “Forgive me for coming to make sure that you weren’t face down in a toilet. And would you have it, you _are_. So, what is this? Are you sick, hungover?”

_Dead. Dying. Broken._

_Didn’t Billy explain it enough?_

Steve scrubbed at his face again with his sleeve before pulling the door open and pushing past Tommy. He washed his hands before splashing water on his face. He shoved all of his emotions into a blank empty expression, cupping his hands under the water and drinking from them.

He was _not_ going to cry in front of Tommy. It wasn’t fucking happening.

“I’m fine. You can go away.”

“Look-“

“I wasn’t _asking_ , Tommy.”

“Yeah, I wasn’t fucking _listening,_ Steve,” He snapped back, breathing out harshly like he was a wildfire just beneath the surface. “I tried to talk to you yesterday. I know you saw me so don’t play like you’re surprised.”

 _Don’t play stupid, Steve_.

He didn’t say it because they both knew that Steve never had to _play_ at being stupid, that he just was. Tommy didn’t say that because Tommy _wanted_ something, saw an opportunity to sink his teeth back into Steve.

“What, should I have stopped and gave you enough time to piggyback off someone else’s insults?” Steve asked harshly. “I wasn’t really in the mood for you to play sidekick to Billy fucking Hargrove.”

Tommy rolled his eyes in the mirror reflection, fire blazing in his eyes and then receding. He wanted a fight, or he didn’t, Steve was too tired to care when Tommy said, “We used to be friends, Steve.”

They _used_ to be friends because Nancy was great. She was beautiful, and smart, and _right_. Steve had been miserable all the time, trying so hard to impress everyone and working so hard to stay cool by making everybody feel worse than him. He was selfish, and mean, and everything that he was _supposed_ to be.

They used to be friends, the same way that they used to be assholes and Steve used to be okay with that but Nancy came along and she was better than them. She taught him _better_ , uprooted him from all he thought that he was supposed to be, what the world was supposed to be, and he couldn’t go back to Tommy, or King Steve, or anybody that he used to be.

“I fucking _know_ everything about you so –“ Tommy took a breath, pushing it out through his teeth. “That shit that Hargrove said, you can act like it didn’t affect you but it _did_ and you – man, you look like shit.”

Steve must have missed the fucking memo where everybody decided that they needed to weigh in on his appearance today.

“I don’t know, maybe Wheeler’s vagina is like cocaine or some shit,” He continued. “And this is all withdraw but, it looks like there’s something else going on here.”

Steve blinked, “Why do you fucking care?”

The thing was that Tommy _shouldn’t_ care.

Steve dumped him and Carol on their asses in the Fair Mark parking lot and never picked them back up. Tommy had used every waking moment afterwards to tell everybody _everything_ that Steve ever told him because that was what Tommy _always_ did any time they fought, any time hitting Steve wasn’t going to work.

Steve hadn’t _cared_ because he had Nancy to win back, and had to make things right with Jonathan, and monsters existed. Steve _still_ didn’t care even after he’d lost Nancy, and was tired, and monsters still existed.

“Did you missed the part where I said that we _used_ to be friends?” Tommy asked sarcastically because he thought that Steve was still just an idiot, because _everybody_ thought Steve was just a pretty face with nothing behind it, that he was just decoration. “What Hargrove said to you, that was bullshit, alright? A lot of us thought that it was over the line but…”

No one thought that he was wrong.

Everybody knew that it was the truth laid bare.

Everybody knew that Steve was broken.

“I got to thinking and well, you don’t look good, man. You haven’t for a while,” He pointed out, shrugging. “You said that your parents were home so, I don’t know. You could just be sick, or they could be all over your case again. Maybe your new friends don’t know how fucking awful they make you feel all the time.”

Steve could have laughed. _Friends_.

He didn’t have any fucking friends.

He was _alone_.

“Why do you care?” He asked again, harsher, almost accusing. He felt rubbed raw and paranoid, and _right_ in his thinking. There was no reason that Tommy should care unless someone _made_ him care. “Why do you care _now?_ ”

He’d never cared about Nancy, about Barb, about anything other than leeching off Steve’s popularity, keeping Steve on top so he could stay on top. He only took care of Steve because Steve was _bad_ at it, because he didn’t have parents that wanted to do it, because Steve probably _was_ depressed.

He wanted to cry, to throw up, to punch Tommy into the ground.

_Fucking spy. Fucking traitor._

He wasn’t even _good_ at it.

Tommy blinked at him, eyes squinting up all confused and hurt before it faded into an annoyance. His face morphed into a grin, into a laugh, into something mean, “What the hell happened, Stevie? Wheeler dumped your skinny ass for the freak because she’s not _miserable_ like us, like _you?_ ”

“What happened?” He pushed, stepping closer and crowding him. “She cares about stuff, right? Just didn’t care about you.”

“Did she get tired of taking care of you?” He continued, laughing. “Grow tiresome of your ‘ _woe is me, I have everything I want’_ act? Or, what, was it just that she realized that the only way an idiot like you were going to go anywhere in life was if your daddy buys your way there?”

He was being mean on purpose, picking through Steve’s insecure and playing the ones that he liked the best. He was pushing for a reaction, for the fight that they never had, “Wow, maybe Hargrove was onto something.”

Steve didn’t want to hit him. He just wanted to _leave_ but Tommy kept pushing him until his back was to the wall. He breathed in and shoved Tommy back hard on the exhaled. He inhaled sharply and swung his fist hard, catching Tommy on the chin. He pushed off the wall but Tommy was on him, shoving him.

Tommy never fought a fight that he didn’t think he could win.

Steve’s wild card status was quickly revoked by his own brokenness. He couldn’t win this fight, he didn’t _want_ to.

Tommy shook him, sneering in his face about his _weakness_ and his self-worth, about turning him into an enemy when he spoke to Carol with disrespect, about Nancy Wheeler like this was still about her.

“You’ve never beaten me before, Stevie boy,” He sneered. “What makes you think that you can now?”

Steve _couldn’t_ but that wasn’t the point.

The point was that Steve hurt Tommy. For as alone as Steve had always been, Tommy was forgotten as the youngest in a big family. It was supposed to be the two of them, raising hell and getting noticed for all the wrong reason, now and forever, and Steve had broken that promise.

Steve hurt him and he _deserved_ to be hurt back.

Steve didn’t know how to atone for everything that he’d done wrong but he knew how to get his ass kicked. He knew how to take it and roll with the punches, and not be a bitch about it. He could do that.

“You should hit me.”

Tommy blinked again, his fingers uncurling out of Steve’s shirt by the fractions, “What?’

He had heard what he said but Steve repeated it again, “That’s what you want, why you came in here, right? You’ll leave me alone after so, you were right. I can’t take you in a fight so – hit me.”

“What kind of – what _game_ are you playing?” He demanded, shaking Steve by the shoulder before laughing cruelly. “Is _this_ really the game that you’re choosing to play, Harrington, just be as pathetic as possible so everybody takes pity on you?”

Steve rolled his eyes, this wasn’t going to go anywhere because Tommy wasn’t a fighter unless Steve made him be one. He shoved Tommy’s hand off his chest and pushed him back, “Forget it.”

His shoulder was grabbed but Steve had been expecting it, easily shrugging the hand off. He had even been expecting the shove back into the wall but he hadn’t been expecting the open-handed slap.

It was a bitch move, and it fucking _hurt_.

He blinked in surprise and Tommy sneered, “What? Just treating you like the bitch you-“

The thing about Tommy was he wasn’t as smart as he thought it was, that he was just as dumb as Steve was and he telegraphed his punches. He swung from the right, palm out and hand open,  face twisting up but Steve had been up against scarier things.

He planted his foot in between Tommy’s feet and sent his elbow into his chest, shoving him backwards.

Everything fell slowly.

Tommy stumbled backwards, tripping over Steve’s foot and reaching out for something to stop his fall. Steve felt the tug on his jacket as Tommy scrambled for a grip, felt the pull as his fingers caught in his open pocket, and then a deafening _tear_.

Steve’s pocket was full of loose pills from Karen Wheeler’s medicine cabinet.

That thought landed heavy in his mind like a migraine.

His mother had been gathering up trash yesterday and wanted to empty out the trashcan in his room. Steve had panicked, empty the pills into his pocket, and had forgotten about them until now. All he could do was watch as one by one tiny blue pills tumbled out of his ripped pocket and followed Tommy to the ground.

He watched with something close to horror as they bounced against the dirty floor in a cacophony of ear-piercing _pings_. Tommy froze on the ground, eyes bouncing from Steve to the pills, and his face morphed into some greater understand, into a sadness, into disappointment.

“Steve, what-“

The thing was that Steve couldn’t take the pills but he _needed_ them.

He needed them, the same way some people needed security blankets.

He wasn’t going to take them but he needed them there to know that he _had_ an escape from his parents. He _had_ the means to sleep when he couldn’t and desperately needed to, and knew that the pills were the only way. He needed them because they were his _out_ if he chose to take it.

They were what shut out the world, that could end the world for a few hours. _God_ , he couldn’t lose them.

“Don’t-“

He didn’t know what he didn’t want Tommy to do, couldn’t get his mouth to move as he dropped down beside him to pick up the tiny blue pills and shove them into his pocket. Tommy just watched, something kind of hilariously horrified on his face.

“Are those _pills_?” He snapped out of it, getting to his feet and just – staring at Steve like he really didn’t know what pills looked like. “Dude, what are you – where the _fuck_ did you even get those? Why do you – is that _why_ you look so bad, are you – high? Strung out? Oh my –“

“Shut the fuck _up,_ Tommy,” He snapped. “I’m not on fucking drugs.”

Tommy scuffed, clearly disbelieving which was fair. Steve wasn’t making a good case for himself but he also couldn’t really _breathe_ anymore so he didn’t really care about dealing with Tommy right now.

“They’re sleeping pills,” He finally said, getting most of them. “I need them to – sleep.”

“You keep sleeping pills in your pocket, right.”

“I – _whatever_ ,” He breathed out, curling his hands into fists. It didn’t hurt to press his fingers into his palms anymore, the cuts had healed and Steve really needed them not to be.

He needed the pain to feel awake.

 _God,_ he wished that Tommy would have just hit him.

“Just – it’s nothing, okay?” He breathed out. “Drop it. Just – drop it, okay? I need them to sleep.”

Steve wanted to leave, tried to, but Tommy never dropped anything that he wanted him to and he wouldn’t drop this. He shoved Steve back against the wall, his hand tangling up in his shirt, “Do you know what the _fuck_ you’re doing?”

Steve wanted to laugh.

When had he _ever_ know what he was doing?

He fought monsters, not knowing what the fuck he was doing.

“Why do you care?”

“I don’t,” Tommy said on reflex, it didn’t make the dig hurt any more or any less when Steve could feel the numbness starting to sink into him again, could feel himself starting to shut down. “Steve, I’m not going to just let you _die_. That’s what shit like that _does_. It kills people.”

Steve’s halfhearted struggle meant nothing when Tommy wanted him to be there so he sighed, and he repeated, “They’re _sleeping_ pills, they’re harmless.”

“You know my aunt, Julie,” Tommy continued like Steve hadn’t talked. Maybe he hadn’t, maybe he was a ghost, neither here nor there. “She – the one that stayed at my house for like a month because she was really depressed, she took a bunch of these _harmless_ pills and they had to pump her stomach at the hospital. She almost died.”

Steve didn’t know what to do with that. He didn’t know why people kept telling him shit that he didn’t know what to do with.

He was _dumb_. He couldn’t fix anything so, “Okay?”

 _“Okay?”_ Tommy mocked, shoving his hand into Steve’s pocket and threw a handful of the pills back onto the floor. The noise caused Steve to flinch. “You were my best friend for years, I’m not fucking letting you kill yourself.”

Steve wanted to laugh.

He wanted to say, _stop me then._

He wanted to say, _I’m already fucking dead, man._

He wanted to say, _fucking watch me._

Steve didn’t say anything. He slumped back against the wall, gave up the pretenses that he was going to fight Tommy at all.

Tommy had leaned back but he was still close enough that if he wanted to put his hands on Steve, he could. Steve suspected that he really did because Tommy was staring at him like he wanted to beat common sense into him, like he was disappointed. So, Steve reacted quickly.

He shoved him hard and sudden, and darted out of the room before Tommy could get his bearing. He tried to slow his steps, to look normal and to breathe, but he knew that he must have looked as crazed as he felt because Emilia stopped him, “Sugar, everything okay?”

He wasn’t sure if he managed a smile but had made the attempt, “I’m fine, could I – could I get my check, please?”

“Of course, it’ll just be a moment.”

Steve nodded and dropped down in his booth, slouching down low when Tommy came barreling out of the bathroom. He started towards Steve, fire in his eyes but it was wetted and put out when Carol got in his way. She talked lowly, laughing about something and pulling him over to the table with her friends.

Steve took a breath.

He closed his eyes and laid his head down on the table top. He felt like crying.

He might have drifted off, or shut down, or spaced out because one second, he was alone and suffocating in his chest, and the next, he wasn’t. There were too many voices, angsty pre-teen bodies crowding into his space and taking up his oxygen, yelling at him so loud that he couldn’t fucking breathe.

“You can’t give Dustin money and not the rest of us!”

“This is favoritism!”

“It’s really not fair!”

“He’s not even any good at the games. He loses to Max all the time.”

“What’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

“I’m not saying that girls can’t be good at arcade games, just that-“

“Oh, please, do continue that sentence, Lucas.”

Steve sighed and he wanted a drink but he _couldn’t_.

It was like they were getting louder and louder just to be heard over the others, and it was too fucking _much._ Steve forced himself to chew on a fry, grinding it down to nothing between his teeth and swallowing hard before asking as calm as he could, “What are you talking about?”

Five sets of eyes turned to him with varying levels of annoyance and eye rolling. Steve fucking _hated_ each and every one of them, or he didn’t.

He didn’t have to figure it out because it didn’t matter.

He wasn’t driving them anymore.

“What are you talking about?” Mike mocked, crossing his arms. “God, you’re so _slow_ , it’s amazing that you made it out of the _first_ grade. It’s not _fair_ to give Dustin all of your quarters when we split out money evenly to buy you a sundae.”

 _Except that you didn’t fucking buy me a sundae,_ Steve thought bitterly, picking up the check on the table. “I didn’t give-“

“Steve doesn’t have to listen to you, Mike!” Dustin cut in, giving Steve a look because all of this was his doing for stealing all their change. “Jesus, you’re _nobody’s_ boss and I _am_ his favorite because you’re a huge asshole _all the time.”_

“I’m not the asshole. He’s the one being an-“

“We’re _all_ assholes, all the goddamn time,” Steve snapped. “Just – _shut up_. I need to think.”

“Oh my god, call the press! Steve Harrington is going to think for the first time in his entire life.”

“ _Shut up_ ,” For different voices said before they all got quite for one whole second. There must have been something that shifted because the next second past and then they weren’t quiet at all, being just as loud as they had been before.

Steve could feel every breath landing heavy in his chest, dropping to the bottom of his lungs with the taste of cooper. He could feel his fucking heart pumping and beating, and shattering apart in his chest.

His eyes burnt hot.

His whole goddamn face, that was supposed to be his saving grace, that held all his worthiness, felt so fucking hollow and empty. He was nothing more than tight skin stretched over bones these day.

He was not panicking.

He was angry.

He was angry at Dustin for forcing him out of his house, at Tommy, at Mike fucking Wheeler, and the whole goddamn world. He was angry at his parents, and Billy Hargrove, and he was being yelled at by a bunch of pre-teen _assholes._

He didn’t deserve this, or maybe he did.

But even if he did, good people don’t fucking treat people like this. Like _Christ_. They were supposed to be better than him.

 _Nothing_ was fucking fair anymore.

Jonathan could take pictures of his backyard and into his bedroom windows and Steve wasn’t allowed to be angry about it, to be creeped out by it, to feel violated, to fucking _respond_ to it. Billy Hargrove got to beat him into the floor, got to take his crown, and attack him with harsh words when he promised fists, and Steve got yelled at about his follow through.

Nancy got to cheat on him and make him wait for months for her, and lie to him about loving him but she didn’t have to feel bad about anything. Steve just had to accept it. He couldn’t be angry because she was happy, because she deserved better than him, because she _was_ better than him. He was supposed to just be _grateful_ that she pretended to like him, to help him, to care about him.

His parents got to be gone all the time and not care about him but Steve was supposed to care about everything. Tommy got to be angry, and hate him, and steal the only way Steve was sleeping nowadays. Carol got to spread lies about him. Everybody got to do _everything_ to him and he was just supposed to take it.

He was beaten half to death.

If Max hadn’t stopped Billy then Steve would have died that night. It wasn’t even a matter of _could have_ , he was _going to_ because Billy wasn’t going to stop, because he was crazed, because he’d snapped and was fucking _laughing_. Everybody brushed that off like it was nothing. He was stuffed in a car, forced into a hole, and expected to drive around all these kids that hated his fucking guts for the rest of forever.

He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his lips together. He could feel his body pitch forward because his body needed to cry, or scream, or die. It needed something more than this.

He couldn’t stay here.

He didn’t even _want_ to be here.

The noise and the yelling, and all the goddamn arguing quieted when he stood up, throwing cash down on the table. It picked back up as they followed after him when he started to walk away. He ignored it.

He started straight ahead, trying to breathe and ignoring the buzzing at the base of his skull. His eyes were a laser focus on the door. He didn’t acknowledge the kids, or Tommy, or the woman in the raincoat.

There was a mitten-covered hand that pulled on his jacket sleeve once they were outside, trying to stop him but not able to do it so trekking footsteps crunched the snow behind him. They all fell quiet, except for Dustin because he was the spokesperson, the moderator, the go-betweener, “Steve, where are you going?”

He tried, “Steve, slow down.”

He tried, “Steve, let’s just talk, okay?”

He tired, “Steve, are you – _no_ , that’s a dumb question. You never tell the truth.”

Steve stopped at that.

His whole face felt numb and it had nothing to do with the cold. His eyes burnt with a heated pressure behind them, and he could feel his voice ready to crumble on its way out of his chest. He knew that it would come out broken. He almost didn’t care.

But he _did_ care because as much as he _didn’t_ , he would always fucking care. It was the most exhausting part of his entire fucking personality.

He really wanted to laugh but instead, he took in a deep breath of cold winter air and steadied his voice. He sounded almost mocking, daring them to lie to him because they _weren’t_ fucking friends. They didn’t want to be his goddamn friend, they just wanted a driver.

So, he didn’t laugh, he just repeated the adage, “Friends don’t lie to each other.”

“I know,” Dustin agreed slowly, calmly, like he didn’t know if Steve would fall to pieces or combust. “I know but there are loopholes. You can always tell the truth and _not_ tell the truth at the same time. They’re called half-truths.”

Steve knew that. He wasn’t a fucking idiot.

“Like my dad _is_ on call this weekend,” Dustin continued. “That’s not really the reason I’m not there thought. His girlfriend doesn’t like me and _that’s_ why I’m not there.”

 _That sucks,_ Steve thought about saying to him. _Tough break. Parents suck like that sometimes, buddy._

Steve thought about telling him, _that’s not my problem._

He thought about saying, _you’re not my problem and I’m not yours._

He thought about crying, _how the fuck am I supposed to fix that?_

Why did people always come to him with problems that couldn’t fix?

Steve couldn’t _do_ anything, he was completely fucking useless at fixing his own problems and it – it wasn’t fucking _fair_ for everybody else to come to him with theirs.

Steve couldn’t save Barb. He couldn’t break up Dustin’s dad with his girlfriend, or be a big brother, or take care of him. He couldn’t get beat up, he couldn’t die, he couldn’t be what anybody wanted him to be and it wasn’t fucking fair. He was _trying_.  

He breathed, “…Okay?”

“So, you’re _fine_ but fine is like, subjective,” Dustin pointed out. “And in terms of everything that _we’ve_ seen, that’s happened recently, _this_ -“ He gestured to all of Steve “–this is fine because it could be worse.”

_It could be worse._

_His parents didn’t hit him. They were away because they loved him. His mother wrote about him because she loved him. Nancy pointed a gun in his face because she loved him._

_He didn’t drown in his pool. He wasn’t bullied. Demo-dogs didn’t eat him in the junkyard. Nancy didn’t shoot him. He was alive, barely, but he was alive and that was a lot more than Barb, or Bob, or a hell of a lot of people in Hawkins National Lab could say._

This wasn’t hell, it was purgatory.

Steve wasn’t sad, or depressed, or miserable, just tired. He didn’t have PTSD, or a girlfriend, or a future.

Steve blinked, “There is nothing wrong with me.”

_I’m rich. I’m good looking. I’ll work at my father’s company after graduation, I’ll marry someone smart. I’m a Harrington._

_My life is perfect. This is what perfection looked like._

_The gate was closed, no one was hitting him anymore, and Nancy was happy. Everybody was safe. He didn’t want anything else._

_Right?_

What else could he want?

He swallowed hard, feeling the air slide down his throat in jagged ice shards. His mouth tasted like blood, and metal, and bile again as his eyes flickered over to Max, to Lucas, to Will and his big eyes before settling back to Dustin, “Everything is great, fine. Hargrove’s backed off.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, we – talked,” Steve nodded. “So, uh – so, it doesn’t really matter, you know. He wasn’t _doing_ anything anyways, just – being annoying, but I’m annoying, and you’re annoying so… I’m fine.”

“I’m fine,” He repeated. “I am – I _got_ into college, so you know, I’m actually really fine so. You guys should be at the arcade, playing games and trying to beat all of Max’s scores.”

Max scoffed, “Good luck with that.”

It didn’t really look like they were convinced that he was fine but Steve was already turning on his feet as Dustin said, “Steve, I’m _never_ going to beat Max’s Dig Dug score.”

Steve stuck his hands in his jacket pocket, feeling the tear in one and in the other… He stopped as his fingers curled around two little blue pills, and he breathed, and forced himself to laugh.

It sounded like laughter on life support, hollow and full of holes but there was _some_ life breathed into it, “You won’t with that attitude, kid.”

There were close enough to the arcade that the kids could walk right past him into the warmer inside but no one was moving, they were just watching him. Steve wanted to die.

He wanted to cry but that would just make him feel worse so he clapped his hands together loudly and told them that they had fifteen minutes left, that he would give them an extra thirty minutes if they wanted it.

Steve watched the way that they all looked between each other and then at him. It was Will that spoke up, sounding all downy-soft and calm, “I think we kind of just want to go home.”

Lucas added, “Yeah, like half of the machines are down.”

Max shrugged, “My mom probably wants me home anyways.”

It was nice but Steve wasn’t as dumb as everybody thought so he knew that they just didn’t want to be around him. That was fine because this was the last time he was going to drive them anywhere.

“Cool,” He said flatly, turning on his heels and walking to his car. They filed in after him wordlessly, and Steve put all his focus on the road as he dropped off Max, Mike, Lucas, Will.

It was just routine at this point to drop Dustin off last but Steve regretted doing it as soon as Will closed the door behind him. It was probably a dumb thing to do but he clocked the sleeping pills at knocking him out at the half hour mark and all he wanted to do was be conscious for as little as possible when he got home, so he took the two he had left when he turned down Dustin’s street.

He swallowed them dry.

Dustin spoke up as he pulled to a stop outside of his house, voice quiet like Steve was a deer that would spook if he made any sudden noises, “Steve, I’m afraid.”

Steve felt cold and empty, sick, “Is _something_ wrong?”

“No, nothing like – I’m _worried_ about you. I’m _scared_ because of you,” He explained. “You – I don’t know, I really don’t but, I don’t think that you’re okay anymore and that scares me.”

Steve blinked, _I’m not okay._

_You’ll be better off without me. The party will be better off, Nancy was._

Steve was going to throw up, “I’m fine.”

“I’m going to get you a dictionary for Christmas, Steve. Seriously, you’re _not_ ,” Dustin told him. “I – maybe Nancy was right about the post-traumatic stuff, or maybe she wasn’t but I don’t think you’re just sad anymore, Steve. And, you can’t keep this up.”

Steve felt tired and he was going to fall asleep. He needed to get Dustin out of his car before he fell asleep behind the wheel. _Not that it fucking mattered_.

Dustin looked concerned.

He looked needlessly mature, and worried, and Steve knew that it was his fault. He knew that he was stuck in purgatory, that he was never going to get out, and maybe the first steps to atoning was to rid himself from Dustin’s life.

Steve knew what he was like. He knew how he burdened people with his stupidity, with taking care of him, and he occupied too big of a space considering how little he had to offer. He knew that he was an anchor that Nancy cut loose, that the kids were doing the same, but Dustin _wasn’t._

So, Steve was mean. He was tired, and cold, and he didn’t have the heat but he had the words, “I’m not driving you anymore.”

“What?” Dustin asked, face pinching into surprise and then hurt. “Why? Because – because I _care_ about you?”

 _Yes. You shouldn’t_.

“Steve, don’t be-“

“Because I don’t fucking want to,” He told him, listing it out like he was reading a list. “Because – because I’ve got better things to do, because I’m not dating Nancy, and the world isn’t ending, and I’m a _senior_ , and graduating, and –“

Steve took a deep breath and forced the words through his lips as cold and hard as he could make them, “Because we’re not friends.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Get out of my car.”

Dustin looked hurt, and betrayed, and a little like he was warring within himself if this was even worth arguing even though Steve was _telling_ him that it wasn’t. No one fucking listened to him so Dustin sighed, “You’re trying to hurt my feelings so I’ll leave, and that’s not going to happen.”

“I – I’m sorry if I’ve upset you,” He added, picking up more confidence and determination as he went. “I’m sorry that I didn’t buy you a sundae like I promised, and I got you yelled at, and – I’m sorry that you’re going through something and have no one to talk to about it.”

Steve grounded through his teeth, “Get the fuck out of my car.”

“But I _am_ your friend, Steve,” He continued like Steve hadn’t talked. “I’m going to get out of your car because you’re asking me and I told my mom that I’d be home at this time but – I’m _here,_ okay? I’m your friend and I don’t know how to help but I can _try_. You just, you have to tell me what’s going on.”

“I know that you said watching Jeopardy and not talking about anything was a good start, we can do that again,” Dustin added. “My mom can probably fix your jacket, too. We can just – hanging out _helps_ , being with your friends helps me so my door is always open. Okay?”

He sighed when Steve didn’t respond, “I’m going to go. I don’t have to be your friend but you’re mine, and I don’t let my friends hurt alone so, get used to me being there.”

“I’ll see you after school on Monday,” Dustin told him as he got out of the car, closing the door behind him.

Steve wanted to cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things: 
> 
> (1) My writing goal per chapter is 4,500 and I'm currently average 8,000 but this chapter was closer to 10,000 which is crazy because I had to cut it short during my second draft so, what was actually supposed to happen in this chapter will happen in the next.
> 
> (2) Originally Tommy was going to have a bigger role in this because I think he’s an interesting connection to Steve, since we mostly only see him through his relationship to Nancy on the show but then I forgot to put him into it.


	15. Chapter 15

Steve woke up cold.

Consciousness flooded into him like the ebb and flow of collapsing waves and rising ocean tides. It rushed upon him suddenly, pulling him under with strong currents and crashing him into the grainy rubbed-raw roughness of reality’s beaches. It then receded into a softer dark unknown.

It was a beacon in the waters for him to find a way back home, a loud thumping ping-ponging madness all around him but just out of reach. It was an immortal savor to rescue him from the sleepy waters. It was an elusive shadow on the horizon, like government spies and Billy Hargrove’s follow through.

He knew it to be there but consciousness bobbed within his grasp and slipped through his fingers. He wasn’t even sure if it was what he wanted.

The depths of his sleep prescribed oceans were endlessly blue and deeply black beneath the surface. It flooded into his mouth and deep into his lungs with choking viscosity, it pulled him under and got him lost. The shores were long gone, eaten up by the horizon.

His only salvation the water was the thumping beacon.

It was his only escape from his mind.

There were monsters in the water, infesting the deep with the kinds of creatures that ate killer sharks and masked men. The kind of monsters that blooded the water, that thirsted for flesh, that approached with loud growing crescendos.

The music grew in his heart, and his ears, and his mind with sharp sinister rhythm. It was building upon itself, exceeding to something deafening and loud, something forceful, something that demanded to be acknowledged. Demanded to be _feared_.

And then _nothing._

In his oceans, he couldn’t breathe.

He couldn’t rest, or stop treading water, or die.

The monsters didn’t attack in these oceans.

He was alone in these oceans. He was alone with the monsters that he knew were there but that never appeared. He was never bitten bloody, never torn to pieces, never pulled beneath the surface to never appear again.

It was the cohabitation that frightened him, that _obsessed_ him, that _tortured_ him. It was the anticipation that they _could_ attack at any moment and the kind of isolated loneliness that drew weak men to insanity.

It was the _knowing_ that the monsters were _there_ that was maddening but it was preferable.

He preferred the deep seas and the never-seeing monsters that Karen Wheeler’s sleeping pills drowned him in. He preferred them to the monsters that crawled out of the walls, out of his pool, out the shower drains in the locker room and through windows of his car when his eyes slipped closed on their own accord, unaided by anything but his body’s inability to stay awake any longer.

It was in those dreams that the screaming happened.

The harsh echoed terror of Nancy’s shrill and terrified shrieking, of a gun jamming up. The hollowing crying of Will, possessed. The reverberating shouting of too many children in breathing tunnels and the screeching of demogorgons of fire. The screaming of _Barb,_ and _Benny,_ and _Bob_ , and sometimes Billy’s manic laughter.

He never ran fast enough or far enough in those dreams, never made it to save _anybody_ from rows of sharp unforgiving teeth. He only ever made it far enough to watch, to see teeth sink into bones, and blood, and the way screaming gave way to tears, to begging, to pleading. _Steve, please, help me._

_Steve, save me. Steve, protect me. Steve, rescue me._

_If you cared about me, you would. If you were stronger, I wouldn’t be dead. If you were better, or smarter, or Jonathan._

_You’re pathetic_ , Nancy always told him with blood in her teeth. _This is why I could never love you._

 _This is why we kicked you out of the party,_ Dustin cried through vicious disembowelment, Mike sneered as he cradled the Will’s head, Lucas sniffled as he failed to patch up deep bite marks. _You were supposed to protect us._

 _This is how you let me die,_ Barb told him in pieces, cut up and ripped apart, oozing out blood so deep that it was black. Her eyes white and dead, and angry. _This is your fault. You did this to me._

He never had his bat in those dreams, never had the words to say how sorry he was. He tried and it was never good enough.

He would wake up gasping. He’d wake up sobbing, and screaming, and choking on the eerie blue hues of the swimming pool glow on his ceiling. He would suffocate nightly between walls that Demogorgons could walk through and spies were probably listening through but he never died.

It wasn’t even _worth_ it to sleep anymore but even that was preferable to real life.

It was the real world that housed the real monsters, the ones that stolen children and killed nice girls. He’d been face to empty face with the kinds of monsters that were starving, and blood-thirsty, and full of way too many teeth. He was not _good_ enough to protect anybody, he only got lucky and lucky ran out.

If Nancy and Jonathan hadn’t already set up that trap than they all would have died. If he had went home like he was planning to do after Jonathan kicked his ass than his blood would have attracted monsters into his backyard again.

If the demo-dogs hadn’t been called away at the junk yard than they all would have died bloody and _eaten_ in that bus. If Dustin didn’t have some weird freaky connection with one of the demo-dogs than they surely would have fucking died in those tunnels.

If Max hadn’t drugged Billy than he would have died.

Reality was too bright nowadays.

King Steve had ruled over a soft kingdom with bullshit problems and bullshit leadership, and all that had fell to ruin in sharp teeth. Everything was too sharp now, and too loud, and full of too many people that he kept letting down.

It was all corner and hard edges, and _bite_ of Billy’s pointed canines. He couldn’t fucking _stand_ being so aware and alive in this world anymore.

He didn’t even _want_ to.

He didn’t know what he wanted but followed the thumping noise like he was not in control of his actions anymore. He followed through the waves and the deep sea tunnels, over black body bags of half-eaten scientists in lab coats. He didn’t know which way to go so he followed.

He felt lost in the in between. He was somewhere between consciousness and unrest, between living and death. He was in a purgatory of his own devising and he would never leave.

He didn’t know how to be found anymore.

He never knew anything.

He couldn’t think through the dull dry-mouth feel that came with dry-swallowing sleeping pills. He couldn’t think through the cloudiness of his mind and his soul. He was just so _cold_.

He never knew anything, not even in his dreams so he crawled and he clawed, and swam towards the thumping noises with leaded limbs to break the surface to brighter skies and silver-lined clouds.

He didn’t even _want_ this so he must _have_ it.

He felt less like he found his grip on consciousness and more like he had been floating on the water’s surface, and then falling, and then _crashing_ into reality. Everything came to him slowly and then suddenly, drowning him in sharp teeth and loud crescendo beats that scrapped and cut into his soul like the jagged edges of seashell floors.

He was not at sea. He was just fucking _lost_.

It took him a second to realize that all of his discomfort had nothing to do with endless oceans or harsh waves but to do with his car.

The rough cut against his collarbone was not that of a monster or the jagged edges of sea glass but was the rough woven polyester of his seatbelt, that the smoothness pressed against his cheek was that of the steering wheel. The aching he felt was not from being beaten around the ocean currents but being hunched over in the driver’s seat.

He blinked awake disoriented, and lost, and so cold.

It was a coldness felt so deep in his bones that it ached just to breathe. The expansion of his ribs with short shallow breaths felt like the shattering of ice. His frozen joints gave way like traction on black ice.

His body protested the slightest movements, objected to peeling his face off the frozen leather of his steering wheel, to shaking out his sore aching wrists and straightening his back. It hurt even to blink.

His entire face felt numb as he ran his hand down it.

He felt tired, heavy with sleep and achy from the cold. He felt _disturbed_ by his own auto-pilot, by going through the motions so blissfully oblivious because he couldn’t even remember leaving the Henderson’s driveway.

He blinked at his watch’s face, at the time that had slipped past him without him knowing what happened to it.

For a moment, he was sure that he must have crashed.

He turned off the ignition with numb fingers, so sure that he’d fallen asleep at the wheel and skidded off the road after motion and gravity took over with drastic results. He was sure that his head had lulled forward against his chest, his hands slipped from the wheel as his eyes drifted shut, and his car cantered into a ravine.

He must have knocked himself out which would explain why he was missing five hours of his day, why his entire body ached. The heat must have been kicked off in the crash or, had he turned it on?

He sunk down in his seat with hooded unseeing eyes, took comfort in the thought of being forgotten at the bottom of nowhere. He thought about the sun slipping down over the horizon, taking the rays and the light and plunging him into darkness. He thought about Demogorgons and demo-dogs, and the cold taking over.

He thought that he was pinned there, trapped in his car without an escape from the ravine. He thought about how the body slowly shut down when exposed to the elements for too long, about the cold overtaking him and freezing him. He thought about how _pathetic_ this was, about how much he _deserved_ to die slowly.

He exhaled, feeling so fucking _relieved_ to be trapped with no way out. He’d _wanted_ this, to have the decision over his life and his eventual death to be controlled by some outside force.

His eyes snapped open at the thumping on the roof.

His mind flashed to thought of the Jaws of Life and how he didn’t even know what that really _meant_ but that he didn’t want it. He didn’t want to be saved. He didn’t deserve it.

He imagined some goddamn Good Samaritan watching his car go off the side of the road or seeing the shine of his tail lights from the road and calling it in.

Of course, they were taking even _this_ from him.

He fucking _deserved_ this so he couldn’t have it. He _wanted_ it so, of course, he wasn’t going to get it. He was stupid for thinking otherwise.

He blinked three times in quick succession and felt _sad._

He felt almost confused, felt stupid when he saw his father’s aged face through the snowy glass of his windshield. His eyes shifted from his face to his father’s Lincoln parked farther up the driveway and the long stretch of their house in front of him.

_Oh._

He hadn’t crashed. He was just… home.

He could feel the heat of his father’s hard gaze permeate the wintery glass and heat up the inside of the car with its intensity. He could feel it burn into his skin like branding him with freezer burn. It weighed against his skin with a level of exasperation, disappointment, annoyance that Steve had become all too accustomed to.

Steve supposed that he should probably _care_.

He should probably do _something_ , or blink, or act like he was still a living human being and that his parents weren’t reporting on him for the government.

He knew that he should probably come up with some excuse to explain himself. He should give some bullshit explanation so that his father thought that he was taking responsibility for his future – _‘Oh, haven’t you heard, dad? The guys at IBM said that freezing your ass off in your car boost productivity and brain function.’_

He knew that whatever justification that he came up with wouldn’t actually get him out of trouble but for a moment, his parents would just think that their idiot child was into hippy magazine bullshit and not fucking dead on the inside. Nothing was going to stop them from giving him shit about it but it would get them to hold off on the passive aggressive lecture until he warmed up.

 _God_ , he could not deal with a passive aggressive lecture right now.

He should probably do something but he just felt _cold_. He felt tired, and worn out, and like he hadn’t slept in a million years so he didn’t offer his father anything. He just blinked again, owlishly.

“Steve,” His father called through the glass, tapping his leather glove against the window before pulling on the door handle even though it was locked. His breath was pouring out of his mouth like an irritated dragon as he spoke, “What is it that you _think_ that you are doing how here? Do you know the temperature?”

He didn’t fucking know anything and they both _knew_ that.

He yawned.

“You look ridiculous, do you have any idea what the neighbors would think if they saw you out here?” He asked, demanded, _scolded_. Steve didn’t even _know_ their neighbors, he didn’t fucking care what they thought except that he kind of _did._

“Someone could have called the cops, Steven,” He continued. “They could have thought that you – our son, _my son_ , was some junkie shooting up the driveway. You realize that? Do you realize what image of yourself and our family that you’re putting out there?”  

 _God_. It was fucking exhausting having to care about this shit.

His father paused in his rant, scrutinizing the dark circles under Steve’s eyes and the hollow of his cheeks. He pulled on the handle again, asking lowly, “Are you high right now, hopped up on those hip new drugs?”

Steve nearly snorted, _Jesus, I fucking wish I was high right now. I wouldn’t give a shit if I was high._

He nearly laughed, _do you know how much easier these conversations would be if I knew what ‘hip’ new drugs were?_

He nearly swore, _fucking Christ._

_You don’t know anything. Shut up._

_I fucking hate you._

Instead, he asked, “What are you talking about?”

He felt bad, and cold, and partly dead. He supposed that he also felt a little annoyed that his father would accuse him of being high when all he ever did was occasionally smoke pot and take someone else’s prescription sleeping pills.

Not that his father would know _that_ because his father didn’t know a damn think about him.

He felt devastatingly disappointed that he was in his own driveway of his stupid house that never felt like a _home_. He felt stupidly upset about his gas tank running low, and being this cold, and his father being _here_ with that stupid look on his face like Steve gave a fuck about what he was saying.

All of that was a good enough reason not to have this conversation right now so didn’t provide an answer.

He didn’t have to _do_ anything.

He was never driving anybody around ever again. He was _never_ going to be the good son, or the smart son, or even the handsome son ever again. He was never going to fucking _sleep_ again.

 _God_. God, he –

He _hated_ his father. He fucking hated Tommy, and Billy, and _Colin, age whatever._  It wasn’t fucking fair that they were all here, judging him like they fucking _knew_ him. It wasn’t _fair_ that they kept taking, and taking, and taking from him the stuff that he needed and never give him anything.

It wasn’t fucking fair, okay.

It wasn’t fair that he felt so – _empty_.

He felt like the fucking Upside Down, and untouched winter mornings, and being lost at the ocean and his parents not fucking caring that he nearly drowned.

He felt tired. He just wanted to sleep.

His father’s brows pulled together in contempt and he pulled on the door handle again, “Steve, open this door.”

He pulled again, “Now, Steven. I’m not asking again.”

And again, “Don’t make me go get the spare key.”

Steve sighed, and he conceded. He gave in and fucking gave up, unlocking his door. He tried not to flinch when the door was open and his face was taken roughly in his father’s big hand.

He let his father force his head up with the hard grip on his chin, not fighting it. He didn’t complain when he squeezed his fingers against his jaw until the bone ached and his eyes shot up.

Whatever his father seemed to find in the depths of empty dead eyes was satisfactory because he dropped his hand. He demanded, “What are you doing.”

Steve doesn’t really know why he bothered an answer at all, “I’m _tired_.”

He watched his father sigh, running his hand over his face before unsnapping the seatbelt. He pulled on Steve’s arm until he was out of the car and lead him up the driveway without a word.

Steve knew that it was dumb but he liked to think that all the frustration and disappointment lining his father’s face had nothing to with him. He was more annoyed by the spectacular way that Steve managed to park halfway into the flower bed than the fact that his son was a moron.

He was probably pissed off that now he was going to have to pay someone in the spring to come mend to the flower beds like didn’t do that every fucking spring anyways. No one in the neighborhood was going to fucking care about their dead goddamn flowers.

They were still going to bitch _so_ much about their fucking flowers being ruined.

God, they were going to bring up how having a car was a privilege, about him failing his driver’s test the first time, about him being Hawkins’ biggest fuck up. And he was going to have to _take_ that too.

“Go into the kitchen, Steven, your mother wants to speak with you,” He told him, his hand slipping off Steve’s shoulder once they were over the threshold. It was like he could only show that he cared if he thought that people might be watching.

Steve wanted to laugh, wanted to say _just fucking wait, buddy. The fucking government was always watching. It was nineteen-fucking-eighty-four._

The words slipped form his mouth unwillingly, melting in the warmth of the front hall and watering out of a thawing jaw. They weren’t angry words like he wanted, they weren’t sharp and hard-hitting, or anything other than that of the lonely desperate plea of the child that he’d stopped being a long time ago, “Couldn’t you just – could you-“

 _Care_. The word stuck to the roof of his mouth, refusing to fall. _Please._

_Please. Could you act like I’m your son? Could you pretend? Just pretend that you care about me. Just ask me what the fuck I was doing slowly freezing to death in my car._

_God, was it too much to ask for his own father to give a shit about him?_

He wasn’t being selfish, he wasn’t. He wasn’t the asshole.

He _knew_ that he could be a selfish asshole, that he wanted what he wanted and reacted like a dick because never fucking got it but he wasn’t being selfish about this. He was _owed_ this, it was the bare fucking minimum.

When you had a fucking kid, you take care of them.

“What is it, Steven?”

Steve took a breath, running his tongue over his cracked lips and sighed, “It’s nothing. I’m sorry.”

There was something in the maple-colored hazel of his father’s eyes that seemed to shift to _something_. His pupils went large, eating up the color with darkness like he _saw_ something for the very first time.

It was like his father actually saw _him_ , saw Steve for what he was. He saw him standing there, saw him struggling.

For a moment, it was like Steve could _breathe_ because his father was seeing beneath the sleep deprivation and greasy hair to all the parts of him that were crumbling, and cracking, and breaking down like ancient ruins on Italian summer trips.

Something so close to caring flickered in the darkness of his eyes, and Steve took a breath.

 _This_ was what he wanted, what he needed. He _needed_ to be seen, he needed his father to understand and fix everything because he was _always_ fixing things.

He needed this. He wanted it.

The phone in the back office rung, echoing down the hall and everything just fell apart. Everything fell back to the way they always were.

They both looked down the hall towards the noise, and Steve watched his father scrub this moment away with an ancient hand through his graying hair. He sighed with his whole body, “That’s important, I need to get it. Go to the kitchen, Steven, I believe that your mother’s been waiting for you long enough.”

Steve rolled his eyes at his father’s retreating back.

He bit down on his frustration, and frozen hurt, and how fucking stupid he felt for thinking that this moment could be any different than all the rest.

He wanted to start screaming and never fucking stopping. He wanted to throw a huge tantrum, bigger than any that he threw before learning that tantrums didn’t get him anything.

He wanted to puff out his chest, to flood his veins with California fires, and demand to know what big fucking publication deadline was so important that he couldn’t even _ask_ Steve if he was okay.

He wanted to scream, and shout, and tear the whole fucking house down. He wanted to unleash the fire that Billy was so desperate to see burn onto this house, and his father, and onto himself until there was nothing left of any of them.

He wanted to say, _you make me want to die._

He wanted to say, _you’re my dad. You’re supposed to care about me._

He wanted to scream, _fucking traitor. I hate you._

He said nothing. It wasn’t worth the fucking energy.

 _His mother was in the kitchen._ Who fucking cared.

Steve didn’t do anything but stay rooted to the spot, watching his father disappear down the hall and into his office. He didn’t breathe until he heard the ringing stop and his father’s patented, _Yes, this is James Harrington._

 _My fucking son is about to kill himself but you’re clearly more important._  

He didn’t do anything except feel achy and sad, heavy with ice and exhaustion, and _hurt_. He didn’t do anything except rub at his dry eyes, and then he dragged his frozen feet into the kitchen.

He stopped in the doorway.

His lips parted with the force of the breath that was kicked out of him at the sight, surprising settling into his gut like molten lava. He could have laughed.

He felt like laughing the same scary fucking manic _nightmare_ that had spilled out of Billy’s face at the Byer’s house. _Really._

_Seriously._

Jesus fucking Christ on the cross himself would not fucking believe the level of bullshit that Steve was dealing with today. It was utterly fucking ridiculous, “What is this?”

His mother looked away from her coffee mug, halting her conversation to split her face into a big smile. She was all big fucking smiles and bigger hair, and family picture perfect as she called over to him, “Stevie, _honey._ ”

Steve felt _suffocated_ just in the presence of her.

He didn’t know how he still had it in him to feel betrayed by her.

He honestly didn’t know how he could feel anything other than contempt for her after having his emotions and his childhood laid bare in her books under the guise of _caring_ , after so many missing holidays, games, birthdays. How she called him _Stevie_ even though he asked her to stop a hundred different time, he could still feel the sinking hot _stab_ of betrayal from her.

Apparently, he could though because he was feeling pretty fucking betrayed right now.

He felt so _done_.

He was fucking done with the day, with her, with every-goddamn-thing in this town.

Billy was wrong because there were still things in him that were breaking down and crumbling. And she was wrong, hope was not an endless well of _something_ , fucking misery was.

His mother unfolded off her stool at the bar, walking towards him with an outstretched arm like the woman that she was sharing coffee with wasn’t the spy from outside of the Wheeler’s house, the spy from the diner, the spy in the raincoat with the slick black hair. _Fuck_.

“Steve, darling, don’t stand there all day,” She scolded him lightly. “Come in here.”

He clenched his jaw when his mother” touched him, wrapping her thin arm around his narrow shoulders like this was something that they did.

She pulled him into the kitchen and he forced his legs to uproot from the floor, allowing her to drag him father into the depths and bring him closer to this woman. He ignored his mother’s lame smile and tried not to acknowledge how hot this burnt, how it heated and raged like the Upside Down on fire deep in his gut.

He felt like he was burning up and melting down, and was being lead to his fucking execution while his mother used the exact same smile that she used to film her lectures. _Fucking traitor_.

He didn’t offer a smile through his mother’s bullshit introduction. He wasn’t going to believe the bullshit lie that she was trying to sell him, wasn’t going to pretend that he believed that the raincoated _spy_ was a colleague of hers even if it would save his goddamn life.

He was not this stupid.

“This is Janice Winston, Stevie,” She told him, petting down his shirt collar. “We shared an office when I did the research for my second book at Purdue, she was a professor.”

Steve was pretty sure that he never once visited his mother when she was at Purdue because he was like, ten when she was writing her second book. He was also pretty sure that he didn’t even fucking know that she had ever been there until _now_.

“Dr. Winston just moved closer to town,” She continued. “She recently opened a private practice and is teaching at the community college. She agreed to take time out of her busy schedule to come see us today. Isn’t that wonderful?”

 _No_. It was stupid.

He wasn’t _that_ much of an idiot, and _– sure._

Maybe he was a little gullible.

Maybe Mike was right and he was a little slow on the uptake because Nancy had duped him when she told him that she loved him despite how painfully obvious it was in hindsight that she wasn’t as into their relationship as he had been. Maybe he was stupid but he wasn’t going to fall for this.

He wanted to laugh, wanted to fucking _cry._

Nancy was so fucking _right_. Everything was bullshit.

Steve was bullshit. His mother was bullshit. All these lame as pretenses and cover stories were bullshit.

She was a _spy_ and they all knew it.

This raincoated woman, this ‘Janice Winston’ with her slicked back hair and smart glasses, _had_ to be a spy – for the government or his parents, for _someone_.

Hawkins was small but it wasn’t _that_ small. Coincidences weren’t so common that he would run into the same lady on three separate occasions unless someone was planning it.

There were no flukes when the government was involved, just disappearing child and monsters. Steve wasn’t this _stupid_. Christ.

Her fingernails were dark red and Steve remembered a book that he’d read about an assassin with poisonous nail polish. She would scratch her victims over dinner or at parties, and they’d get sick slowly and then suddenly. They’d cough up blood and die excruciating deaths while the assassin leveraged an antidote for information.

He clenched his hands at his side when she extended her hand to him, asking his mother, “Can I go upstairs?”

His mother said in a polite warning, _“Stevie.”_

_Stevie, be polite. Stevie, play nice. Stevie, let the spy know everything._

_Stevie, I never wanted children._

“Ma, I – have so much homework,” He tried but it was stupid, and useless, and he shouldn’t have fucking bothered. They both knew that he wasn’t doing his homework.

Dr. Winston dropped her hand, curling it around her cup again like it was nothing as Steve’s mother petted down his messy hair and tsked at the tears in his jacket. She told him that Dr. Winston specialized in teenage trauma, that she was published and held in high regards in academic circles. She told him that she was going to help him.

“It’s become apparent to me that you were a little more affected by the happenings in this town than I originally thought.”

She messed with his rumpled shirt collar again and sighed like the ‘happenings’ in Hawkins had just been that some kid got lost in the woods for few days. Like those happenings weren’t Barb being missing for a year, being dead, like they didn’t find a dead little boy that looked exactly like Will in the quarry.

Happenings, like Will wasn’t in the fucking Upside Down, like the government and monsters weren’t fucking stalking the town. Hawkins wasn’t fucking _normal_ and it was _unnatural_ for someone to not be affected by what happened here.

Steve didn’t know why now was the time that his mind to fall back to all those assemblies in eighth grade about peer pressure, and teen suicide, and ‘always being a buddy to your buddies’ after a couple of kids killed themselves a couple towns over.

He remembered how dumb he thought it was. He remembered passing notes with Jeanie Marshall about kissing under the bleachers while the guidance counselor droned on about people choking themselves with their belts for fun, how easy it was to fuck that up and strangle yourself.

He remembered making jokes about it.

He let his eyes close shut for a second and he pictured his mother’s grip on his shoulders reaching to his neck. He imagined her delicate dainty fingers wrapping around and pressing, and pressing, and _squeezing_ until his face turned blue.

He remembered fists against his face and how he _swore_ that he could feel the bones shifting before everything faded to a ringing, and then to white. He remembered choking behind a bandana on the Upside Down, the stickiness down in his lungs, and then he opened his eyes, “Well, stranger things have happened in this town. I’m fine, Ma.”

“Of course, you are,” She said dismissively, giving his shoulder a squeeze. She droned on about privacy and giving them a moment to talk before leaving him alone with a fucking spy, assassin, killer. “Dr. Winston is just here to talk to you.”

Dr. Winston smiled something polite, “How are you this evening?”

_Fucking livid._

_Dead. Dying. Pissed off._

Steve’s mind flashed with half-formed thoughts – her in a lab coat with brows drawn pensive, her torturing El with that same polite curiosity in her smile now, her shooting Benny, her face splitting open into rows of sharp edged teeth. He felt sick.

He blinked.

She was still smiling, and he was still cold, and he didn’t stop himself from asking her harshly why the _fuck_ his parents thought that they were so fucking smart all the goddamn time. They didn’t even _ask_ him if he wanted to talk to a therapist even though he knew that she wasn’t one.

It would have sold the cover better if he had been _expecting_ to see one, or if they had mentioned once that their ‘friend’ was moving to start a practice nearby. _God_.

Her face shifted surprised before returning to that distant curiosity. She unfolded her notepad in front of her and double clicked her pen – _microphone –_ before asking him, “Why do you think that is, Stevie?”

They honestly thought that he was so fucking stupid that he would blab everything to this woman claiming to be a psychiatrist, a _friend_ of his mother’s even when he didn’t talk to his own friends. _He had no friends. Shut up._

They honestly thought that he would be so dumb that he wouldn’t find it a little suspicious that his parents managed to get a therapist to make a home visit on a Saturday evening at this short of notice. It was insulting.

“It’s _Steve_ ,” He corrected, scratching his wrist absently. “They don’t know shit about shit, and they don’t know anything about me.”

 _Tell that to your bosses, telling fucking Ronald Reagan that he was barking up the wrong tree,_ He thought bitterly. _They don’t know anything. They’re useless fucking lackeys, stupid fucking spies. They don’t have to stay here anymore._

_Let them leave. Please._

“Why do you say that?”

Why _wouldn’t_ he say that?

Didn’t the fucking government have enough surveillance to know that Steve practically lived alone, that he only had parents in theory? He raised himself with the help of babysitters and nanny’s, and he turned out _wrong_. He didn’t fucking know anything.

Steve felt suddenly like talking, and talking, and saying everything and nothing about all his angsty teenage bullshit that had _nothing_ to do with labs, or kids, or monsters without faces. He felt like blurting out nothing of value, nothing that mattered because _he_ didn’t matter and she would realize that quickly. It was bullshit, he was bullshit.

She would realize that he knew nothing and the government would leave him alone.

They’d leave Hawkins.

His mind thought back to people in black suits and sunglasses, thought back to body bag after body bag, after body bag that were pulled from Hawkins National Lab. He thought about the camera crews that left without the real story.

He thought about sitting in the hospital waiting room with the smell of burning death clinging to him, waiting to hear about Will. He thought about the crime scene photos of Benny’s Diner that Hopper hadn’t quite covered well enough.

If he refused to say anything that she would think that he was hiding something, she would come back and bring back up. She would make the connect from him to the kids, to Hopper, to Nancy, to _El_. If he refused to talk and just stared at the table, or left, or fell asleep then his parents were going to be pissed at him.

So, he conceded.

He gave in. He gave up _just_ enough.

He smiled something a little dead and spit out all this teenage angsty bullshit that he had convinced himself a long time ago that he was going through, that didn’t really _mean_ anything in comparison to almost everything. He vomited up words about break ups, and college applications, and not knowing what to do with his life. He rambled about being beat up, about bruises and a concussion, and Billy Hargrove not _stopping_.

Dr. Winston listened with her hands folded in front of her, notepad wedged beneath them and her knee. When he was done with his spiel, breathing hard and his heart pounding, she said to him, “Your mother mentioned that your friend Barbara passed away last year. That must have been a traumatic experience.”

_Of course, she mentioned it._

_I fucking got Barb killed. I basically cut her hand myself. I didn’t make sure that she was inside. I cared too much about getting laid than about her safety._

_You fucking know this, you goddamn spy._

Steve smiled something small, a cold set rigor mortis, “Tell me about it, Doc.”

He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to feel after talking to Dr. Winston.

He didn’t think that he felt better for it, though maybe a little lighter to get some of the junk off his chest. He didn’t feel comforted about not giving up anything or relieved.

He _did_ feel betrayed.

There was a rawness beneath his surfaces and it was seeping blood. It was something so extremely close to that fire that Billy wanted to see more of. It was a raging heat, a burning infection of _something_. It was bleeding, and gross, and simmering, and he felt deeply ashamed.

He didn’t tell his parents that he wasn’t eating dinner, not that he would be able to stomach it anyways when he knew that they were trying to chip him. He just went to his room and pretended to be asleep.

Sunday came and it went, and Steve didn’t get out of bed.

He didn’t take the messages his mother said that he had, he didn’t respond when she asked through the door if he wanted to talk to Dr. Winston. He didn’t eat dinner. He didn’t _do_ anything.

He said that he was sick, they might have believed that.

He didn’t really care.

His Monday morning motions were full of halts and stops.

He cut out showering, out breakfast, out smiling to his parents and listening to what were undoubtedly lies. He sighed when he walked out on the front porch, sighed as he shook the snow off Dustin’s bike and again when he put the bike in his trunk.

He drove Dustin to school because he had to drop the bike off at his house and when he got there, the kid got in his car. Dustin shucked his mittens off into the cupholder and shook off his ear muffs, rubbing his hands together, “Thanks, man.”

Steve thought it was pretty fucking rude because he _told_ Dustin that he wasn’t doing this shit anymore but he didn’t repeat the words, or fight this. He just sighed.

He turned the heat up, turned the music up, and didn’t stop himself from asking, “What about Veronica?”

Dustin’s voice didn’t allude to anything when he shrugged, “What about her?”

“You –“ Steve squinted. “You bike with her in the morning. Right?”

“Yeah, typically.”

“And she’s a _girl_ , so that’s kind of a big deal, right?” Steve said, got the distinct feeling that this was what it felt like explain Dungeons and Dragons to him. Jesus, no wonder Mike was always so bitchy about it.

Dustin gave him a blank look, “I told Veronica that I can’t do that anymore.”

“Why?”

“Because we drive to school together.”

_I’m not driving you anymore._

Steve didn’t imagine that he told Dustin that because the Dustin in his head would have said ‘ _okay’_ and he wouldn’t have looked so fucking sad about it. He would have been relieved to have an out from Steve. He could have laughed and said, _‘thank god, I thought that you’d never take a hint. We all hate you. We hope you die. You’re pathetic.’_

Steve couldn’t even respond. What was he supposed to say when someone disregarded him so completely?

He turned his eyes back on the road and merged into the slow traffic through morning flurries. Today was going to be _that_ day.

He just knew it.

No one shoved him into his locker that morning. There was no sneering in his ear, no sinister _‘Watch it, Harrington.’_ There was nothing and Steve _hated_ it.

It wasn’t even maddening anymore. It was annoying.

No one talked to him about little blue pills, or the loss of his jean jacket for one of his dad’s old coats, or asked if he was okay. Dustin didn’t even ask, he just chattered the whole drive about career day coming up.

Not that Steve needed anybody to ask because he _was_ okay. He was totally fucking normal. No one liked Mondays anyways. There was a whole song about it.

He looked like shit, _sure_ but he was probably sick.

He was tired, bordering on exhaustion, and gravity felt like it was weighing particularly heavily on him today. He didn’t fix his hair that morning so he probably _was_ sick. He might have even been cancerous and dying because even during the apocalypse, he fixed his hair.

No one pushed him into his locker that morning.

No one talked to him.

He was a ghost. He had existed on borrowed time in a purgatory of his own making. There was only so long that anybody was going to be willing to stick around so, he wasn’t surprised. He wanted this anyways.

He _wanted_ this.

He’d almost stopped talking to Nancy completely, hadn’t said a word to her since they spoke on her porch. They were the way they were, he was learning that and accepting it.

She could only offer criticism and judgement, and Steve only knew how to react badly to it. Nancy was a perfectionist and he was a disaster, they weren’t going to work.

He wasn’t sure if he still felt love for her, or if he was just in love with not feeling so fucking alone all the time. He knew that she was better off. _Deep_ in his soul, he knew that her and Jonathan were supposed to be together.

He’d just been a stepping stone to get there.

It hurt but it was true, and he – _needed_ to get over her, to move on. It wasn’t like he had anything to offer her anyways, it wasn’t like he really had a life to live or a future, or anything. He was a ghost.

He was basically haunting her so this was better.

It was better that they weren’t talking, better that she was happy in love with someone else, better that she offered her judgmental eyes only when they passed each other in the hallway but he was feeling desperate.

He was feeling that sickly, sticky, overly sweet and kind of sour desperation leaking out of his pores like sweating through his deodorant. He felt _gross_ with it.

No one pushed him into his locker, no one shoved him, or acknowledged him, and he couldn’t _stand_ being conscious for this long. He hated this. He hated being _alive_ and so completely and utterly aware of it every ounce of it. He didn’t stop his feet as they moved on desperate instinct down the hall to her locker.

He asked her breathless, scratching absently as a bump on his wrist, “Those – your mom’s pills for sleeping. I, uh – well, fuck, okay. I lost them, I dropped them and I lost all of them. I – do you have more?”

 _God_. Could he had sounded more like a junkie?

Could he have looked more desperate?

He might as well have been wearing a bright neon sign that read, _‘Nancy fucking Wheeler was right!’_

She didn’t look smug though.

She looked up from the mirror in her locker to him with a passing horror like Steve was every slasher movie kill in one. Her brows did that thing where they got straight and then bunched together to form a wrinkle in the middle of her forehead, her mouth turning into a straight-lined frown.

Steve felt crushed when she said, “No.”

“Does she have anything else?” He asked. “Anything that makes you sleep?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know.”

Jesus. His parents never had anything stronger than Advil and cold medicine in their medicine cabinets. Why did she think that he knew shit about drugs that made you sleep when he had told her about his mother’s dislike of unnecessary prescription drugs?

Why the fuck could she not remember what he had said on like, four separate occasions in their relationship? _Christ._

It was starting to get really fucking irritating that no one ever listened when he talked, like what he was saying wasn’t important.

It was bullshit.

“Forget it,” He pushed through his teeth in a harsh straight line, running his fingers into his greasy hair. “Yeah, it was dumb. Forget it.”

She opened her mouth like she wanted to say something. Her big eyes going wide and damp before sobering into something guarded and hard, she closed her mouth and shrugged her shoulders before speaking again, “Okay. I will.”

He waited a beat, wanting her to ask if he was okay or offer some sort of advice so he had a reason to be angry but she didn’t say anything. She turned back to her locker and picked out her books so he just left.

His eyes felt hot behind them as he turned on his heels. He blamed it on being sick because he probably _was_. He blinked hard.

He got halfway back to his locker before he heard, “Steve?”

It was like he’d never moved, how quickly he was back by her side. All of that sticky desperation in him slicking out of his skin like oil, “Yeah?”

“The yearbook committee is planning the fundraiser coming up,” She told him, closing her locker door. He waited with a sick anticipation for her to tell him to meet her afterward, for her to tell him to help out and she’d help him but she said, “Can you pick up the kids after school? Jonathan and I are going to be busy planning all week and my mom said that she’d give you gas money.”

He breathed out. Oh.

_No. I’m not driving anybody anymore any more._

_I’m not in the party. I’m not a driver. I’m not your boyfriend._

_I don’t owe anybody anything._

“Yeah, sure.”

“Thank you,” She smiled and his heart cracked as she squeezed his wrist. “It means a lot. I hope you feel better soon.”

He tried to smile back, tried not to crumble beneath her gentle touch. He nodded once and turned on his feet. It was _that_ day.

Steve blinked and yawned, “Hmm?”

“May I see you after class, Mr. Harrington?” Mrs. Gonzales asked him, and Steve gave her a blank faced nod, slipping low in his seat. He couldn’t even pretend that he was passively paying attention in her class anymore so he just prepared to be read the riot act. “I trust that you’ve misplaced your homework again?”

“You know me so well, ma’am.”

“Would you like to come to the board and work out the equation for partial credit?” She asked, going through these motions like Steve was a living person, like geometry mattered, like they both weren’t really fucking tired of this.

“Nah,” Steve said like he always did, getting a few snickers from the room. “Better ask Byers.”

“Very well, Mr. Harrington.”

Steve had a horribly embarrassing thought when Tommy filtered out the door after class, looking at him with a look that he was too tired to try to understand. His gut sunk, so sure that Tommy had told Mrs. Gonzales about the sleeping pills. Tommy was the same kind of petty asshole that Steve was, he wasn’t above it.

He thought about Billy and all his words, and wondered if word had spread of just how broken he was. He thought about Jonathan, and how Jonathan probably actually hated him and was trying to ruin him even farther under the guise of caring. Steve wasn’t even a _threat_ to him anymore.

He thought about spies, about microchips, about ice cream.

He readied excuses on his tongue but she didn’t mention any of it. She didn’t even yell at him for not paying attention, or doing his homework, or trying in her class.

All she did was ask if he wanted to eat lunch in the teacher’s lounge today. She told him that she noticed that he often ate in his car and that it was getting too cold for that, about how they were serving spaghetti from that Italian place out on Randolph Lane and there was always too much.

He should have said no.

He should have laugh and told her that eating lunch with teachers was practically social suicide and his reputation was already on life support as it was, that his reputation had been beaten into the floor and devoured by demo-dogs. He should have told her that he had homework, that he had his own lunch, that he couldn’t trust food made by other people anymore.

He nodded, _whatever._

He picked through spaghetti in the teacher’s lounge and tried not to think about how much he regretted his decision to not sit out in his car and nearly freeze to death as the teachers talked about around him about midterms. It did kind of feel like dinner at home.

It felt even more like home when Mrs. Gonzales asked him about his plans, about his future, about his classes.

Steve almost said, _I have no plans, I’m the fucking loser that everything thought I’d be._

He almost laughed, _I’m already fucking dead. I’m not surviving this goddamn year._

He almost cried, _God, just kill me already. Please._

Instead, he shrugged his shoulders and stabbed down at his food until his plastic fork poked through the bottom of his paper plate. He gave her the standard replies. He was working on his college essays, that he was doing his homework.  He told her that he was going to go to school on his father’s dime, work at his dad’s company, and marry – marry nobody.

He stabbed at a meatball and Mrs. Gonzales sighed, “And that is what you want to do?”

_What does it matter what I want? I don’t matter._

“Yes.”

“A lot of people have this mentality that you’re supposed to have everything figured out,” She told him, “That your future should be set in stone come senior year and that simply is not true. There are no rules that say that you can’t change the plans that you already had, or the plans that were made for you.”

Steve wanted to fucking leave.

He didn’t _want_ anything.

He already knew that he wasn’t going to work for his dad. He knew that he wasn’t fucking going to school, or sending in his college applications, or driving any fucking kids around anymore. He wasn’t going to graduate, they both fucking knew that he wasn’t.

He was going to die this year, one way or another.

Steve tried to smile, _tried_ really hard to, “Yeah, I know that.”

He let his smile drop, “This is what I want.”

He grinded his teeth together, “This is what I’ve _always_ wanted.”

“I want you to make it to graduation, Steve,” She told him in a kind voice but it didn’t do anything to soften the blow of what she meant. He wasn’t dumb, he knew that his grades were slipping.

He didn’t have Nancy pushing him to do better. He didn’t have Tommy checking over his English for dumb mistakes or any of his tutors anymore. He didn’t have the _drive._ He knew that he wasn’t _just_ getting by with high C’s and low B’s, and the occasionally hard-won A like he used to.

Everything was slipping. It didn’t _matter_.

God, _why_ did no one see that? It didn’t fucking matter.

“You’re not the same young man that walked into my class on the first day of school, Steve,” She told him and like, _no shit_. It was a little too late for people to start caring now.

“I’m not going to lie you,” She continued. “You weren’t my best student but I saw how hard you were working. I saw that you were trying to understand the work and you were truly doing well. I know that you can do this work, Steve, but…”

_He wasn’t now. He sucked now._

She sighed, “I don’t know what happened that made such a drastic change in you and I don’t know why, though I do have some suspicions. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to but – I think that you should talk to someone. It doesn’t have to be me or a guidance counselor. It doesn’t even have to be your parents but it should be someone.”

Steve sighed audibly.

He stabbed at his plate again and told her, “This isn’t sitting right. I’m going to go to the nurse.”

“Steve,” She said when he stood up, her hand hovering just over his wrist like she didn’t know where the line was to not cross it. Steve could almost appreciate that.

He closed his eyes and in that second, he was in the Upside Down. He was in a white lab, he was in the junk yard, he was on the Byers floor. It all flooded in with color, and darkness, and feelings that felt all too real, all too painful, like needles, and fists, and teeth.

Then he opened his eyes.

He took a breath and he said, “I’m just tired. I’ve been – working on my college essays, and babysitting, and I have basketball.”

Then he said, “You know, I am seeing someone. A therapist.”

Then he said because he was a fucking liar, “It’s going really well, I think.”

He said, “I’m going to try harder in your class.”

He said, “Sorry, I’ve been such a space case lately.”

He said, “You’re really helped me out.”

He said, “I’m going to go.”

And she said, “Okay.”

 

Dr. Winston started to appear more in his life as everybody else started to appear less. Nancy and Jonathan were so wrapped up in planning the yearbook fundraiser that they couldn’t even spare time to glance at him in the hallways. His dad left on a trip. All the kids were somehow there, in his car every day after school but kept their distance, even Dustin.

Tommy took up glaring at him but saying nothing and Billy was still the unseeing shark in the water. He was the untouchable, unacknowledging, unseeing monsters of better dreams.

Steve had wanted to be alone so he was.

It was just him and Dr. Winston.

She was like a terrible shadow, a governmental shadow in Steve’s Orwellian nightmare. She was an ever presence in the guidance office at school, in the diner, slipping around every corner to talk to his teachers, his coaches, his parents. She was in his house.

At least the Demogorgons had the decency to stay outside.

He’d come home from school and she’d be at the kitchen table. He’d come home from practice and she’d be sipping coffee with his mother, talking in low tones. He’d come home and she’d smile, ask about school.

She’d ask if he wanted to talk somewhere private, somewhere familiar, somewhere away from the large windows in the kitchen where no one could see them. He’d shake his head, drop in the chair across from her and start spilling bullshit.

Sometimes his mother stayed behind the counter, fussing about with a meal that he wasn’t going to eat. It wasn’t how therapy was supposed to work but this wasn’t really therapy, and she wasn’t really a therapist, and no one actually listened to Steve anyways.  

He couldn’t escape.

She’d trap him in with smiles, and perfect notes, and straight pointed handwriting – _abandonment, self-conscious, lack of self-worth and esteem,_ written on them. _Problem._

He no longer thought that she was a spy.

He was _convinced_. He knew she was.

This was all just a trick or a trap because she saw through him. It was the reason that all these conversations lead back to Will’s disappearance, to Barb’s death. He wasn’t _that_ stupid.

Logic told him that he was wrong, that she was just some therapist that his parents were paying a lot of money to come to their house and fix him. Logic told him that his thoughts were irrational, stupid, nothing more than the hysterical sleep deprived notions with no basis of sense because _of course_ she’d want to talk about Will and Barb, what happened to them was traumatic.

Logic also said that thirteen year old girls couldn’t move things with their minds though.

Logical said that the upside down was a position to drink a keg from, not a place, not a hell that sometimes leaked into this earth. Logic told him that monsters weren’t real, that lizards were just lizards, and Nancy Wheeler should be his girlfriend. Logic meant nothing, it just stopped you from seeing what would kill you.

_Paranoid._

“I’m not.”

She looked up from her notes, “What was that?”

“I’m not paranoid,” He stated, pointing down to the sharply written words on the page. “You wrote that down and underlined it. It’s wrong. I’m not paranoid.”

“Are you not?” She asked curiously. “You’re reading my notes.”

Paranoid was just a word that they slapped onto people to justify drugging them up to the gills and locking them away until no one believed them. Paranoid was what you called people who were wrong about the truth and Steve knew that he wasn’t wrong. He was _right_.

He _knew_ who she was, what she was and why she was there.

He knew about the labs, about the experiments, how there were ten kids just like El that had come first. He knew what really happened to Will Byers, about Demogrogons, and Mind Flayers, and that the end of the world smelt like burnt flesh and blood on his tongue. He knew that it was locked up behind a gate.

He _knew_ , and he knew what would happen if they figured out that he did. He knew exactly what they would do.

He knew what happened when you knew too much.

Something cracked deep inside of him, seeping into his bloodstream with the same sick desperate neediness that he felt for Nancy loving him, for Karen’s sleeping pills, for Billy to punch him. For _this_.

“You don’t have to tell anyone,” He breathed out before he could stop himself, the edges of his words curling in on themselves with anxiety. “I’m good.”

He was actually fucking great at secrets.

He never told anybody anything that mattered, _he_ didn’t matter. No one ever fucking listened to him anyways. It didn’t matter what he knew, he wouldn’t tell a soul.

She tilted her head to the side, giving him a careful look, “Who would I tell, Steve?”

 It was a trap.

He shrugged and thought of all the spy novels that he’d bought with cash from a charity garage sale last summer. He had initially thought that he could appeal to Mrs. Wheeler’s terrible taste in dime-store novels but ended up just shoving them under his bed with sports equipment when he chickened out.

The government couldn’t know about them.

They couldn’t know the way that he stayed up sleepless and late, devouring the text and pouring over the words. They couldn’t know that he studied the pages, learning about spies, and government tricks, and all the ways assassins could get you. He’d been so careful.

There weren’t microphones in his car, or in the VCR, or in his room. He checked and double checked every day. He never _talked_ about the Upside Down, he didn’t even write about it. He felt sick, and his palms felt damp as he rubbed them on his jeans, “I – I don’t know anything about you, I swear.”

“Steve,” She said, shaking her head. Her eyes looked over his shoulder before back to him, his mother wasn’t even pretending to be busy now. “Let’s talk about Dustin Henderson.”

Steve’s heart stopped, his mouth went dry. He forced himself to cough, “W-why?”

“Your mother tells me that you started picking him up for school,” She said simply. “That he calls the house a lot and sometimes even comes over. You’re rather protective of him and his little friends.”

“I don’t dri – I – _so?_ ” He asked, scratching at his wrist. “What does that matter?”

“Is your new found little brother a result of Will Byers’ disappearance?”

“ _No_. I mean, no? I don’t – of course, it’s not. I just – I didn’t even _care_ that he went missing. I mean, I _did_ but I didn’t know him so I – well, I’m just helping out.”

“Why?”

“Why?” He repeated the simple question slowly, rolling it around in his mouth. “Why not? Mrs. Henderson, Mrs. Byers, they’re both single mothers. They’re all on their own and I – know what that’s like.”

“To be a single mother?”

“To be alone.”

She sat her notes down and the whole room when deadly still but it shouldn’t because she _knew_ that. She had to know how alone he was constantly, how no one cared or stuck around.

It is the softest voice that he’d ever heard when she spoke, like fluffy white clouds and cotton candy. It was so inviting and genuine when she asked, “Why do you feel like that?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“You’re not alone though, are you?” She said. “You have your mother and your father, your friends and your teammates so it must be something that makes you feel that you-“

Something just _snapped_ in him, the lynchpin to a dam that he didn’t even know was in him because he broke into pieces. The words were so laborious and raw, and honest that they startled both all of them when he breathed out, “I almost _died_.”

That dam wasn’t there to hold back anything and everything came rushing to the forefront. All that heat and fire drenched out into a _cold_ unsettled bath.

Once he said the words aloud than he couldn’t keep denying them. He couldn’t deny what had happened to him, couldn’t write it off as his own overdramatic bullshit. He couldn’t _stop_.

Tears rushed forward and spilled over, and the next thing out of his mouth was the rip of a harsh sob. After feeling numb for so long, to suddenly feel everything all at once was dizzying, and hard, and he could _feel_ Billy on him all over again.

It didn’t even matter that she was a spy. It didn’t matter because someone was here, and _listening_ , and he had to tell this or he’d never breathe again, “I almost died and it was so scary, and it _hurt_ a lot, and no one even _cared._ ”

“No one cared,” He repeated in ugly sobbing, wrapping his arms around himself like he was afraid that he’d fall apart. “And – and he wasn’t going to _stop_ , he just – there were _people_ there and he kept _hitting_ me, and laughing, and it _hurt_. He – _he_ didn’t even care what he did like, just showed up in basketball practice a couple days later and called me names, and pushed me. He laughed because I was scared, and-“

There was a single heartbroken, _“Steve.”_

It took him a moment to realize that it was his mother’s voice, etched and aching with a horror too close to home. Her face was pale when he looked up, red ruby lips tilted in a horrible half-moon and her eyes that were just like his, all the way down to the watery near-black hues, “Steve, baby.”

“You die alone,” He said. Everything that he was feeling was too much, turning to a buzz and a while noise, and then nothing but a quite numbness. “You _always_ do.”

_Barb did. Benny did. Bob did._

He would.   

 


	16. Chapter 16

When a person fell apart slowly, it was just life.

There was a natural progression to the destruction of things. Everything broke down eventually, lights flickered off and everything died. Age and time, and weather wore heavy on the world, even the people.

Years corroded into hours, collapsed hours into mere minutes, eroded the minutes down into miniscule seconds. Everything was shaved off and sanded down until there was _nothing_ left but dust.

It was life. It was just how it worked.

There was nothing to stop bones from turning brittle or hair from faded to gray, to white, to thinning bald spots. There was nothing that could be done for hearts that grew weaker and worn out, and life, it just _sucked_ the innocence, happiness, youth from hopeful faces because hope wasn’t endless. Nothing was.

 Bright souls and open hearts turned guarded. They built up defensives that crumbled with age, with weather, with a loneliness too cold to bear. People turned hard and tough with the worst kinds of heartache, or they hollowed thin with it. Teeth grew bare, or weak, or fell out yellow as smooth skin gave way to harsh lines and baby fat ate down to the bone.

Everybody got old and everybody died in one way or another.

 _Eventually,_ his grandmother used to tell him, taking up all the space in his wide young eyes on holiday visits, _everybody grew up._

Everyone grew hard, and calloused, and weathered until even the toughest and the most stubborn of them all grinded away into nothing. Life hardened the strong and it chewed up the weak but either way, we were _all_ falling apart in some way.

 _Eventually_ , she would drawl out the word in her ancient old accent, stretching the word into minutes, months, years, centuries in a single breath. She grounded it out through her teeth until it was nothing but dust.

She would tell him that everybody eventually gave up on their hopes and dreams for medial tedium and meaningless work. Every child astronaut or kid adventurer, every tree-hugger and do-gooder, and all those people that had wanted to change the world for better or worse, would one day hang up their imaginations and never pick them back up.

Eventually, even the best and the brightest made the mistake of growing old. They would give up on the notions and ideals of hopeful children and join a corporate grind, and eventually, they would fade away.

It was a soul sucking world that kept on spinning, she used to say.

His grandmother had always worn bright color scarves and rows of jingling bracelets up her arms that created their own echoed symphonies throughout high ceiling cathedrals every Sunday morning. She wore a big crucifix around her neck, said her prayers before dinner, and she had never worked a day in her life.

She was old Italian money from a family so much richer than they knew what to do with. She was a little batty, a little odd, and Steve had loved her like Christmas riddles and circus music. It was never a corporate grind that got her, she would say, she had aged down and grew up the day she ran away with an American man.

His father always scoffed as she would rattle off riddles and unsolicited life advice, would tell her in a tense politeness, “Mother, don’t put those thoughts into his head. He’s not Peter Pan, he won’t stay a child forever.”

“Oh, _Jamie_ , don’t say such an awful thing.”

He used to grab Steve by the arm and pull him away from her and all her weird ideologies like being odd was infectious. He used to set his jaw and tell her like Steve wasn’t _six_ , or eight, or ten, “Steven needs to start thinking about his future, not filling his head with whatever beatnik hippy philosophies that you’re trying to put there.”

She would gather Steve up in her thin arms and pull him right back, telling his father, “Jamie, he is a _child_. Let him be one.”

Steve would listen to the back and forth like it was an intense game of ping-pong. No one had ever really challenged his father, especially not on the issue of _him_. He would follow the rise and fall of their voices, study their arguments and the jingling sound of her bracelets because his father would always eventually concede. He’d give in, give up.

He never knew how she did it.

His parents always worried that she undermined their parenting, Steve had heard them say it after almost every visit. They worried that she’d fill his head up so much with weird riddles and abstract thinking that nothing else would fit there.

They always told him in the car afterwards that his grandmother’s mind was sick with dementia and that it was leaving her a little more every day. They told him that what she said was meaningless and he would say, _‘it means something to her though.’_

They would tell him that she would ultimately forget everything because everything would eventually be grinded away, even the people that didn’t work. He would say, ‘ _okay.’_

He would pray to the higher powers that his grandmother so readily believed in that she would get better. He would pray that Peter Pan would crawl through his open bedroom window and let him be a Lost Boy, to never let him grow up.

Grown-ups lost their inhibitions and never had time to play make believe with him. Steve really, _really_ wanted to be a Lost Boy but his father said that it was a false hope.

He’d tell his grandmother what his father said and she used to wrap her arms around his shoulders and tell him that the only man he needed to ever listen to was The Big Man.

There had been years where Steve had thought that she’d been talking about his dad, that she was telling him in politer tones that the Lost Boys were just part of a fictional fairytale and that he should just _listen_. He thought that she was telling him to listen to his father’s command because she often _was_ telling him to do that.

In the church halls, where the organs were too loud and everything was too stuffy, she would follow his father’s lead when he told Steve to sing quieter. She would shush him when his father told him to be quieter, would shoo him off to help clean up after service when he scrapped the knee out of his dress pants with is fingernails during prayers and his father had told him to disappear while the adults mingled.

There had been a time after he gave up on the Lost Boys like his father told him to do, that he thought she’d meant _man_ in the same encompassing way that people included women into the phrase _mankind_. He thought that what she really meant was that he should be listening to his mother, that he should be like her.

Far too many years had passed and he was a lot older than he should have been the first time that it occurred to him that she might have just meant God. He knew that she technically _did_ because it was the simplest answer and she was the most religious person he knew. It just didn’t matter when it did occur to him because Steve’s relationship with God had faded with the same disinterest that he had for the Lost Boys.

 If God had really wanted to be _worshipped_ than he shouldn’t have take people suddenly in the night. He should allow people to prepare for the death of their loved ones. He should have been as cool as _literally_ anything else.

 If God wanted his Sundays and his devotion than he shouldn’t have stolen his grandfather from him two days before his eleventh birthday.

No one had cried at his grandfather’s funeral and Steve _still_ felt bad about it.

His father had stood stoic, his mother had been on tour. Steve had been angry, and unjust, and had followed the lead of his grandmother, hand and hand. She had told him, dressed up all in black and lace, and rows of jingling bracelets, _We don’t show our tears, Steve._

She had always been a little odd, accent a little too thick. She had always been a little mean and a little too honest. She was worldly, and clever, and too _much_ for the likes of the family she gave her wealth too. She had been a black sheep of a family of too much money and she had fell in love with an American man.

She grew old, her mind got lost, and she didn’t even cry at the funeral of that American man.

Steve could still remember the way that she leaned in at the funeral and the odd kind of smile on her old face as she told him that falling in love was her life’s only mistake. He remembered laughing because she laughed, giggling so hard that tears fell down his face even though he didn’t really understand it. He didn’t understand anything.

Her mind had been too sharp and Steve had been too young when she cut into his world view with knowledge beyond his years, beyond his lifetime. She would tell him, “When people fell to pieces quickly, we call it a tragedy.”

There was a difference between the likes of Marilyn Monroe and that of Elvis Presley, she used to tell him when he had only known Marilyn from her face in old movies and Elvis from the radio. She used to look into his big brown eyes and tell him plainly, “Monroe’s death was a tragedy. Elvis’ was a mercy killing.”

Steve had asked, “Couldn’t it be both?”

His father would shush him and his mother would scold her, telling them both that Steve was far too young to be hearing things like that. His grandmother would roll her eyes and jingle her wrist, and tell his parents, “That is _nonsense_. The boy is wise.”

She used to say, “There is an old soul inside of that boy and it is tired.”

Her mind got less sharp in her years, like a knife dulling against stone but Steve never knew her when it was a dagger’s point. Dementia had set in slowly and sometimes she didn’t make any sense but Steve never understood what she was talking about anyways when she would go on about God, and old Italy, and talking about his soul.”

He didn’t understand her then but he got it now. He _was_ tired.

There wasn’t even a need for sleep anymore, it was a need for an _end_.

He _craved_ it with an itchy, skin crawling desperation. It was a sickly sweet knife carving up his insides and a sour hatchet hacking away at his soul until all that was left was the _need_ for a rest beyond his own comprehension.

He just need to be _finished_. He needed to complete this in a total finality. He need an _end_.

He was hungry for it, _starving_ for it.

She had said once that once a soul lived long enough that it didn’t need to eat anymore, didn’t need to sleep. He had dismissed it then. He had held her hand and whispered okay, and told her that he was praying for God to take her before she forgot completely.

He wished that he could ask her what she _meant_ , what anything meant because he understood it but only in the way that he understood math equations, and the Upside Down, and the hollow aching in his chest.

He understood everything as long as he didn’t have to think too hard on it, as long as he didn’t have to explore it or make it make sense. He _wanted_ it to make sense though, he needed it too because he thought –

He thought that once you got old, got _ancient_ all the way down to the most exhausted and world-consumed parts of his soul that he would stop needing anything. It wasn’t that the exhaustion went away or that the hunger had faded in him, I was that there was no craving as consuming as wanting to be _done_.

He was ancient in his soul and all that was left for him was to die.

He blinked.

His grandmother used to knit him sweaters. He had always hated them because there were itchy and always too big in the shoulders and the sleeves, and he would have to pretend to love it on Christmas morning. She always made it up to him by speaking in these little riddles and dressing down his father like it was a _gift_ to knock him off his high pedestal.

She called him _Jamie_ even though he hated it. Steve always thought it was hilarious.

She used to whisper in his ear like they were sharing secrets of the universe over ice cream and his parents packing for another trip, and all the tears gathered in his eyes, “A tragedy was just what you called pretty things that went to hell fast.”

She used to tell him as she wiped his face on the edges of her shawl, “The art to life is to fall to pieces slowly, gracefully. Never let them see you sad.”

And Steve would say, “Nana, that’s silly.”

He would ask, “How will they know that I’m sad if I don’t cry?”

He didn’t cry at her funeral because she wouldn’t have wanted that, because they didn’t let people see them cry. He blinked back tears and choked down on sobs, and he fell to pieces slowly behind closed doors because that was life.

He repeated the same actions at Barb’s funeral, and then again at Bob’s. Life was a lot about repeating the same actions over and over, too.

There was almost something hilariously _tragic_ about the come down from this breakdown.

After all his emotions had swelled to their bursting points and _exploded_ through all his flimsy barriers and his crumbing composure, after all that had hurt inside of him had unthawed in fire and poured out blubbering words. After so many tears that he felt like he was drowning in them, he was surprised that there was anything left of him for his mother to reach out for.

He had been falling apart slowly like life was supposed to. He’d given up his on his hopes and his dreams, and anything that he thought was supposed to make him happy but everything still went to shit. He had been falling _slowly_ , crumbing _slowly_ , but something that just cracked and he fell into a goddamn tragedy.

Marilyn Monroe had died pretty. She got an end and a finality wrapped up soft and cozy in the clutches of an overdose. James Dean had been so cool, smooth and beautiful behind the wheel of a cursed car and the whole world _cared_ when he crashed.

Steve went the way of the kings – of Elvis.

It would be a mercy killing.

Sometimes tragedies were just tragedies, and there was nothing pretty about them. There was nothing pretty left in him.

Sometimes tragedies were being told that you were too broken to be killed by the one that nearly killed you. Sometimes tragedies were surviving nightmarish monsters and nearly drowning when the more deserving didn’t. Sometimes the only tragedy you got was breaking down in tears in your kitchen, crying to your traitorous mother and a fucking spy.

Sometimes tragedies were just tragedies and life went on, and that was _something_.

Everything eventually wore down to sharp jagged glass and broken edged shards but there was always _something_ to be done.

Nothing lasted forever but _something_ always went on.

There was something but it wasn’t love. It wasn’t anything that it _should_ be, that it was expected to be.

Love failed to be as everlasting and wonderous as fairytales had made them out to be. Relationships were hard and they fell to pieces too easy, bonds were easy to cut when the one you were in love with wasn’t in love with you.

Nothing was ever as shiny or as new as when you got it, not your car, or the ‘quaint’ house you bought in little old Hawkins, Indiana, or your _child_. Much like enthusiasm, love for anything was quick to sway.

Safety fell to the wayside for world ending catastrophe, for the apocalypse burning, for Billy Hargrove’s fists and a fate so much worse than death. Relationships _ended_ beaten blood into the floor, with kisses to Jonathan Byers, and the realization that telling her to _go,_ that _it’s okay,_ was letting her go forever.

Reigns fell and kings died merciful _pathetic_ deaths. King Steve died, Steve Harrington broke, and he somehow became a shadow of his own identity driving around kids that hated him.

Nothing lasted forever, even that would fade.

Love left. Crying ended. Sobbed words eventually ran out into sniffling, into whimpering, into _nothing_. That which had overwhelmed him and suffocated the breath from his lungs had settled into a new normal, into a _whelm._ It was just how life _was_ now. He would never breathe again.

The only thing that lasted was the misery.

The only _something_ that he had was _misery._

He had melancholy and despair, grief and sorrow, and Dustin had been fucking _right_ because Steve was fucking miserable. He was sad, and he felt broken into pieces. He felt like the shambles of a tragedy played out in its full, like the lights had come up and the actors walked from the stage, and all that was left was _him_.

It might have been his mother, or Nancy, or one of the girls that he used to fool around with that read a lot of Cosmo that told him that tears were nature’s anesthesia. He was told that crying numbed your hurt, that it released your bad toxins so you could heal and it would make you feel better.

Steve could have laughed at that because it was complete bullshit. It was _bullshit, bullshit, bullshit_.

His nana had been right. He should never had let anybody see him cry because he felt _awful._

Crying had just hollowed him out the rest of the way. It had emptied the pressure and the burning behind his eyes and left him with a void. The only thing that was left of him was the misery and it was _endless_. It was a fucking bottomless pit.

It was the _something_ that hope had never been.

It was kind of hilarious in a way that wasn’t funny at all, the way the whole kitchen seemed to fall apart with him. He was ruined the way Hawkins National Lab had been ruined, the way the undercarriage of Billy’s car had been ruined, the way his face had been ruined two years in a row.

And now, the kitchen felt ruined because of it.

 He could literally _feel_ the economic value of the whole goddamn street sink with him like it was contagious.

It was a fucking _tragedy_. Really.

All that was pristine white tile and shiny new kitchen appliances, everything that was modern and family picture perfect had fell to waste with a son that would never be _good_. It was all splattered with _him_. It was dirtied, tainted into the disaster that was his old tired soul.

Everything laid torn to shreds and ripped apart like the Byer’s house walls, and the school bus at the junkyard, and _Bob_.

Everything was broken now. It was ugly, ruined, and nothing could be handsome ever again. Nothing could be pretty anymore, especially not him.

He had been a pretty kid, a handsome boy. He had been a _king_.

God, he fucking _missed_ King Steve. He wanted to laugh.

King Steve had been a miserable fucker that tried his damnedest to knock everybody down to pegs beneath him but King Steve had only ever felt horrible when he was alone. He used to celebrate his parents being away with the heat and the hate of a vengeful child, if his parents weren’t there than _whatever_ because he didn’t _want_ them there anyways.

King Steve used to sit in class and study in secret, and try so fucking hard while looking like he wasn’t trying at all. King Steve acted like failing grades on tests he studied for was a form of rebellion, was something he wanted to do to _spite_ his parents with.

King Steve had been dumb and so blissfully unaware of how deep it ran.

King Steve worried about _college_.

King Steve ruled over a soft kingdom and had a lot of bullshit problems. He ruled an empty house. He hid his loneliness beneath fake confidence, and school pride, and a social position he _bought_ , that had never truly been challenged.

King Steve had _Tommy_ to fight the battles he forced him to. He had Carol’s ear to the gossip and every girl that he wanted. King Steve had invitations to parties, had people who wanted to be near him, had never been alone.

King Steve probably had a _future_ but none of that mattered anymore because like all mad kings in fairytales, he set the wheels in motion to his own downfall.

He caused his fall to ruin the moment that he sat down across from Nancy Wheeler in her study hall period and smiled. He ruined himself and her, and Barb, when he leaned forward and spoke softly, feeding some bullshit lie about his teacher suggesting her for an English tutor.

He spelt out the death of King Steve in _blood_ when he gave her big puppy dog eyes and asked, “What do you say, Nancy Wheeler?”

 _You’re an idiot, Steve Harrington_.

King Steve had never heeded warnings.

He had ignored Carol’s comments about Nancy being a stuck-up bitch, about her being a prude that didn’t put out, about her being a geek that would ruin his reputation. He had ignored Tommy’s scoffs that she wasn’t even that _hot_ , that she was just some high maintenance bitch that only wanted him for his popularity, that she didn’t even _like_ them.

There had always been easier girls or prettier girls but Nancy was a challenge and a mystery, and Steve had always wanted what would destroy him in the end.

King Steve didn’t have real problems.

He did what he wanted in a house without supervision or parents, or love. He didn’t know shit about shit but he knew from the day that he first spoke to her that he would fall in love with Nancy, that he would do it despite knowing that he would never _deserve_ her.

He was a pretty face with nothing behind it, he was thin substance over a void. She was so smart, and passionate, and she was _somebody_. He had pursued her because he _loved_ everything about her, because it would _mean_ something if she loved him.

There were a lot of things that could go wrong in Hawkins, in the world, and realizing that fact was like realizing that the train he was on was about to crash. It was just about waiting after that, and King Steve hadn’t _realized_ that.

King Steve was deluded and stupid enough to think that fighting monsters in the Byer’s hallway was something that they could come back from. He thought that they could get over Barb and block her out as long as they didn’t talk about her. He thought that things could be _okay_ again but it couldn’t.

King Steve was miserable and angry but he never wanted to die.

_Fuck._

Steve sucked in a harsh breath.

He closed his eyes and forced himself to breath. He tried not to flinch as his mother petted down his hair like he hated and kiss his wet face. He let her wipe away the remains of ugly tears and whisper meaningless words to him. He let her tell him that it would all be okay, that was the first step to take to fixing everything, _baby, honey, Stevie._

She apologized for not seeing how much he was hurting even though he had tried to _tell_ her. She shushed him and hummed softly that she was sorry for not being there, for not realizing how broken he was.

It really did mean something but Steve just felt to raw. He felt scooped out and empty, felt hollow, and drowning bottomless in a pit of despair.

He felt too _old_ for apologies. He felt too bitter and resigned, and dead for it to start making a fucking difference now.

He felt tired, really fucking exhausted.

He thought vaguely of the movie Psycho for some reason.

With a startling clarity to a movie that he’d watched _once_ , he thought of the shower scene. He thought about how that scene had been everything and nothing all at once, mundane and fucking _horrifying_ , and that safety had been _stabbed_ away.

He thought of the music, how there was _nothing_ but running water and a shadow beyond the curtain, and then _stabbing_ staccato. It grew, and grew, and _pierced_ down deep into his bones with screeching and screaming, and blood colored gray on white porcelain screens.

 He thought about the discordant frenzy of violins and strings, and the drop to a long drawn out tempo. He thought of the woman with the short hair that had been so unexpecting, so unaware of _horror_ until she sunk to the bottom of the tub. He thought about her reaching out and grabbing ahold of the shower curtain and it not fucking mattering.

He thought about dying.

He thought about Karen Wheeler’s sleeping pills, about what else could have been in her medicine cabinet. He thought about the gun that he knew Nancy still kept in her closet. He thought about the gasoline that Joyce kept in her shed, about Jonathan’s lighter that Billy had stolen from him behind the arcade. He thought about lighting himself on fire and laughing while he and the whole fucking town burnt.

He thought about _Carrie_ , and how he would never be the character that made it to the end of the movie. He would die in every movie that he’d ever watched and if that wasn’t life’s fucking way of telling him to take the fucking hint.

He was the character whose death you celebrated, who you didn’t think twice about, who you forgot. He was the useless boyfriend, the unimportant babysitter, the bully, the athlete, the one that deserved it.

He thought about _El_ and how she was Carrie all the way down to the blood. She knew the impossible, was creepily insightful. She had to know that he was broken, and awful, and deserved to be put down. It would be a mercy killing.

Steve sighed.

He didn’t hug his mother back.

His mind was shutting down again, his whole body was. He couldn’t _do_ this anymore. He couldn’t even pretend.

He didn’t know when Dr. Winston left, only that he had blinked his eyes exhausted and then they weren’t in the kitchen anymore. He sat down on his bed when his mother guided him there.

He just wanted to sleep. He told her that, “I’m tired, Ma.”

“I know that, Stevie,” She told him, rubbing her thumb softly over his cheekbone. She looked into his eyes like she was trying to find her son in there, like she even knew who he was in the first place.

He thought that he should feel sad because her eyes were wide and sad, worried. He supposed that he could have felt relieved, or happy, or thankful that for _once_ he wasn’t a ghost haunting their halls, that he was actually being seen.

He just felt tired. It felt too late.

They were past the point of return for Steve but he didn’t really have the heart to tell her that so he just closed his eyes. He leaned into the touch of warm hands on his face, feeling their solidness and anchoring himself to the feeling.

For the first time in weeks, he felt _real_.

There was a beat of silence and then that crumbled too, and Steve returned to the ether in which he lived as his mother spoke, “I know that you’re tired, baby. I need you to talk to me, okay? I need you to tell me what happened.”

Listening never meant anything when no one actually cared what he had to say, when no one actually _heard_ him. She just wanted to _talk_ , wanted his information and that was all. She didn’t fucking care, “I’m _tired_ , Ma.”

He was fucking _exhausted_ in every sense. He was an old soul in a purgatory that he created and he was trapped there, trapped here. He just wanted _rest_ and she just didn’t understand that.

He wanted to be done. He wanted to _end_. He wanted to fucking be alone.

“Who hurt you, Stevie?” She said softly, trying to coax him into the words that she wanted and _ignoring_ him because even when she was listening, she wasn’t listening. “You said that someone hit you, someone on the basketball team? Were you at practice, was that – was it someone on the team that jumped you?”

“Who tried to hurt you, baby?” She continued, stroking his face and petting his hair, and doing all the things that he’d told her that he hated because she didn’t _listen_ to him, ever. “I _need_ you to tell me, honey.”

 _Tried_ to hurt him. _Tried_. Billy didn’t _try_ to hurt him, he fucking _did_.

Billy was going to kill him but Max intervened, he was going to beat him bloody into the goddamn floor and he was not going to stop. Steve already told her this.

She never fucking listened.

He was too tired for this, for her and all of the goddamn bullshit between them. He told her that he was tired, he told her multiple times and she didn’t listen even though it was her _job_ , “I want to be alone right now, Ma. I – need you to go.”

She sighed understandingly, like she _knew_ any-goddamn-thing about him. She didn’t know anything about anything, and especially not about him, “Steve, we have to call the police if-“

“ _No_ ,” He snapped, the word firm and harsh grinded out through his teeth. He _hated_ her for even suggesting it, for her complete lack of fundamental knowledge of him. Why would he _want_ that?

Didn’t she see how _dumb_ it would be to involve the cops in something that happened months ago, what it would mean for _him_?

She set her jaw in a way that was disapproving and then turned it back to her ever-present bullshit smile, “Stevie.”

He could picture it with clarity.

He could practically taste the cigarettes and the burnt coffee smell of the police station on his tongue, could feel the stickiness of cracked leather seats. His skin heated with the weight of the overhead lights, his ears filled with the buzz of them as Hopper’s pencil scratched across papers, ‘ _you’re here to report a crime?’_

He could picture her with her hair all done up right and her make up perfectly smeared because she was a _good_ mom. She was the perfect TV sitcom mother, the concerned parent, the _outraged_ fucking parent that marched down to the station the moment she knew and demand action.

She was _bullshit_.

She would raise a hell the Upside Down couldn’t imagine, complain to the local newspaper about the inadequacy of the Hawkins police force for not investigating a crime that he never reported, that he had directly _lied_ to Hopper about. She would complain loudly about the social standing of the Harringtons in Hawkins and how that _meant_ something.

She was a media manipulator. She was a book seller, a storyteller. Steve _refused_ to be a part of any more of her stories, her books.

 _“_ I’m not telling the police,” He said through his teeth, cutting off whatever she planned to say about justice, and blah, and _bullshit, bullshit, bullshit_. He didn’t give a shit what she said about reporting crimes and monsters on the loose because there were _always_ monsters on the loose. “You don’t get to care now.”

“Steve-“

“ _No._ No, I’m talking,” He breathed out. “You’re supposed to listen to me when I talk because you’re my – my mom and I’m telling you that you don’t get to _pretend_ that you care about what happened months ago.”

“I got _yelled_ at for having bruises and told that it was _my_ fault by you and Dad before you even _cared_ what happened to me,” He continued harshly, feeling his heart pounding in his ears. He felt on _fire_. “You – weren’t even _here_ to come to, didn’t answer your calls when I had a concussion. I was scared, and – and – and you went _here_.”

_You fucking traitor. You’re a fucking spy and you sold me out to the government. You don’t get to care._

Steve bite down so hard on his lip that it hurt, squeezing his wrist between his fingers of his other hand and feeling his pulse racing. He forced his breath out in a ragged angry heave, “You don’t get to care now.”

He remembered seeing the musical Hair when he was twelve.

He remembered how his parents had asked him for months what he wanted for his birthday, had told him how they were all going to spend it together, how _exciting_ that was going to be. He remembered talking endlessly about wanting an Atari, about the games, about how they could play it together and being told on his birthday that video games rotted your brain.

He remembered not being allowed to be annoyed or upset because he had to be grateful with tickets to a fucking musical that his _mom_ wanted to see.

He remembered cramped theater seats and a stuffy suit. He remembered his parents fighting over his head before the show and in the car ride there, and his dad leaving during intermission to take a call and not coming back. He remembered his mother accusing him of cheating and how the whole fucking day wasn’t even about _him._

He remembered that song. _Easy to be hard, easy to cold._

It was easy to be proud, easy to say _no_. It was easy to fucking care about strangers, the song was right because it was so easy for his parents to care about anything other than him.

He was tired of pretending that it wasn’t the case anymore. He sighed and he scrubbed at his eyes, “I need you to go, Ma. I _need_ that.”

She sighed, and petted down his dirty hair and kissed his forehead. She said softly, “We’ll talk in the morning.”

 _No,_ he thought, _no, we won’t_.

He couldn’t stay there. He couldn’t have that talk where she told him that he was wrong, or his feelings were not what they were, or that she knew best when she knew nothing. He couldn’t do it.

He had to go.

He couldn’t stay here tonight when the walls felt like they were crumbling in and the pool was shining on his ceiling already. He couldn’t stay here anymore because he couldn’t _breathe_ in this house like he couldn’t breathe in the Upside Down.

This house wasn’t his home, it was a fucking coffin.

Barb died here and he would die here too if he stayed.

So, he left.

He couldn’t stay between walls being smothered by guilt, and fear, and _voices_ in hushed arguing about his dad not giving a shit _._ He couldn’t _stand_ being near his mother because she wasn’t asking the right questions, she wasn’t acting like his mother or a spy. She was a whole fucking stranger to him.

Dustin told him once about these transformation spells in Dungeons and Dragons, about with the Mind-Flayer and the Demogorgons, that the game had more merit in the real world than anybody outside of the party knew. He told him about these spells that cloaked someone’s true formed, that transformed them into something that they weren’t.

He thought that maybe that was the case here, that he was still King Steve to the world until he broke a seal and people saw the real him. He thought that his mother might be horrified by what was left of him.

Their handsome son, sleep deprived and hollow thin.

Their stupid son, their son that wasn’t going anywhere even with their money. Their terrible, dumb, stupid shitty son that they had to play damage control when he got a girl killed in their pool, that fell apart in front of spies, that _cried_.

Their unbelievably _pathetic_ son, their _worthless_ son, their dumbass son that could have everything and had nothing. He couldn’t even get beaten up despite _trying_. He was their idiot son that couldn’t get over the end of the world, over Nancy Wheeler, over almost dying.

He _didn’t_ die and he should have.

Barb died. Bob died. Benny died.

He was _pathetic_.

Steve couldn’t stay in this house so, he didn’t.

He took his coat, his backpack, and a change of clothes and he _left_. No one even stopped him despite the fact that he was not hiding. He didn’t walk on silent feet, he didn’t ease the front door shut or ease his car out of the flowerbed.

He got to the end of the block before his eyes started to burn and pressure poured in behind them. He had nowhere to go. He had no friends, no one that cared, nowhere that wanted him.

It was too cold to sleep in his car, he knew that just as he knew that he wasn’t going to sleep that night. He was never going to sleep again.

He drove on instinct down Nancy’s road, weaved through town to get there as he wondered if Jonathan ever snuck in through her windows to study. He stared up at the light shining through her window and wondered if she was worried about her human physiology class, if she was pretending to study or actually was. He wondered about her gun and he kept driving.

He took a shaky breath and he breathed out fogged air, driving faster down Max’s street when he noticed Billy dragging the garbage bins out of the house.

A part of him wanted to pull his car into park in the middle of the road, wanted to run fast and charge hard, and take the fight to Billy. He wanted to make him fight him, to give him the viable justification to just fucking kill him.

He locked eyes with Billy when he was at the curb and Steve couldn’t bring himself to look away until he was too far down the road. When he drove back around, Billy was gone.

Steve drove halfway to Hopper’s cabin before turning around.

He drove down to the arcade and the movie theater, out of town and back. He filled up his gas tank, and breathed out his nose. He turned up the heat and closed his eyes as he barreled down a stretch of straight road.

He thought about Dustin, about reflectors on the backs of bicycles and kids that biked in the middle of the road. He thought about Lucas, about Mike, about Will, and Max’s skateboard, and he opened his eyes again.

He took a shaky breath.

He thought about going home and he didn’t.

He thought about crying, about being alone, about missing his grandma and how life just _sucked_. He didn’t cry. He used to go to Tommy’s when he felt this bad, used to go to Nancy’s, to Carol’s.

He used to have options and people, and be on the top of the world. He used to only feel miserable alone.

 If he crashed his car, no one would care. If he drowned in his guilt and his pool than he would have deserved it.

If he died than it would be a mercy killing.

He sighed and he shut off his headlights, and he drove the roads that took back to his house. He knew that he should go inside, that his parents would have noticed that he was gone by now, _maybe_.

He thought about a lot and then kept driving.

He didn’t feel anything but cold and numb when he pulled his car to a rocky stop but he didn’t get out of his car. He stared in front of him at the house with warm low lights and he waited, and waited, and waited, and –

“Honey?” Fingers tapped on his windshield but Steve didn’t think that he was anywhere other than where he was. His eyes met big brown eyes through the window, found them lined with concern. “How long have you been out here?”

“Hey, Mrs. Byers,” He croaked, trying to smile and not doing that. “Can I stay here tonight?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was hell and a half to write, nearly wasn't considering that I was still writing it yesterday. 
> 
> Things are going to start picking up as we get to the climax of the story in the next few chapters.


	17. Chapter 17

There was the taste of an oncoming storm in the air.

He could feel the heaviness of its imminence deep down in his bones from the first moment that his eyes snapped open to the drum beat of Rock N Roll All Night on his clock radio. He could feel the storm rolling into his chest, could feel its shock scrap across every breath he took.

He could feel the high and low of conflicting pressures brush against his skin with humidity, electric shock, and _trouble._

The steady drumming rolled into the crash of a familiar guitar riff, into _you show us everything you’ve got_ , and then he turned it off without looking at it. He blinked his eyes once, twice, adjusting them to the inpour of morning sunshine before narrowing them up at the cream colored crack on the ceiling.

The storm was palpable. It was almost electric.

He could roll the electricity around in his mouth, feeling the burn of its shock on his tongue and taste its metallic nature. He could drag its charge over his bottom lip and across his front teeth, he could balance it on the tip of his tongue and press it against the roof of his mouth until it _hurt_.

He could swallow the spark and ignite his insides. He could burn, burn, burn, and take the whole world with him.

There was an energy so volatile and insatiable settling heavy in the silence of the morning air. It took up tangible space in the stillness of the room around him as he stared up at the ceiling. He breathed in the energy, he breathed out. He repeated. In and out.

In and out. In and out, in.

He didn’t make a sound.

It was almost like the static on a shitty radio station, something unclear and undefined that clung to the atmosphere, to him, invading his mouth and crawling down his throat. It was stretched so far and so thin that it was begging for him to _clack_ his teeth shut and shatter it.

The hairs on his arms and the back of his neck were raised, his body peppered with gooseflesh and the need for _something_. It tingled down his spine and up his thighs with a promise for that something.

He felt suffocated in a powder keg.

It would take only a spark to ignite him. It would take a single spark to engulf the whole world.

He _craved_ it, honestly.

He wanted it in the same way that he wanted bruises, wanted bare-knuckled fighting, and _fire_. He wanted it, which was to say that he _didn’t_ want it at all, that he _needed_ it.

He didn’t dare move because of it. He didn’t so much as breathe in too deeply so not to upset the semblance of balance in the room.

It was precarious. It was temperamental.

All it would take was one single movement too sharp, the click of his teeth just a little too hard, the tiniest fervor of boiling blood to _spark_ and that charge on his tongue would fan into a flame. Everything would build and expand into an explosion, into a _bang_ , into hell.

He wanted it.

He wanted it _desperately,_ but he did not allow himself to take it.

Not _yet_.

The floor creaked on the other side of the door, and that air that felt so palpable heavily increased by the tenfold. It pressed into his bones, into his ribs, invading his soul with its weight.

Everything was balanced hazardously on the edge of a razor, walking a tightrope between damnation and calamity at the center of a hurricane. Each creaking step caused that balance to wobble, to tilt, and lean, and _topple_ over the side as a fist pounded hard against the door.

Once, the door protested.

Twice, the walls shook.

Three times, and he grunted, “I’m awake.”

The charge sparked, it flared, and _nothing._

But _something_.

He could taste that _something_ in the morning air like the promise of heavy ocean storms. He could feel it like the cold rumble of thunder rolling into shore inside of his chest. He could see it in all its’ bright, deadly lightning glory striking out at sea and electrifying his cells.

He could feel it _beating_ into his skin and out of his chest, cracking in his bones like heavy beach front rain. He could feel it like a hurricane as the fist pounded against the door again, once, twice, three times.

He gritted his teeth, “I said that I’m up, Maxine! Get lost!”

The response that he got back in return was grunted. It was harsh, particularly male, and far too unforgiving, “Move your ass, Billy.”

Billy could feel violence beneath his skin like that of an impending showdown, a clash, a face-off, a _fight_ that was just begging to happen. It was vibrating over his skin and licking up his soul with something like _nerve_ , like excitement, like _want_.

God, he _wanted_ it.

He gritted his teeth and smiled at the ceiling, “Yes, sir.”

The tension crawled out of bed with him. It leaked into the hallways with every step that he took and founds its home in the tightness of his jaw when he slipped on wet tiles in the bathroom, in the stiffness of his muscles not soothed under the lukewarm spray of the shower.

He felt _angry_ , but he always felt angry.

He felt justifiably pissed off about the bathroom being too small, about the overhead fan being broken so everything was damp and covered in water because Maxine used all the hot water _again_. She thought she was so smart.

After the incident at the Byer’s house and they agreed on a truce of some sort, she started getting up hours before him just to avoid him until they drove to school. It would be a smart thing to do if it didn’t piss him off.

If he didn’t have to clean up after her because she didn’t have any _respect and responsibility._ God.

He felt all that tension, and heat, and electricity settle into his chest like butterflies and murderous anticipation as he spat toothpaste in the sink. He felt like _snapping_ Maxine into fucking pieces as he mopped up the water off the floor and off the counter with Susan’s dry towel hanging on the back of the door.

He almost wished that Neil would bitch at him about it, about _respect and responsibility,_ about goddamn bullshit. He _wished_.

He felt confrontation in his _teeth_. Every ounce of blood in his body _wanted_ a fight, wanted to snap, and hit, and laugh with the mania of it. Maxine was smart to avoid him.

On days like today when he felt like a fight and a hurricane, and nothing but destruction in tight blue jeans, it was good to stay out of his path. There was a strain in the wallpaper and that echoed in the shitty dim lighting in the hallway, like the world was bending to his anger. It felt like the whole damn world was functioning just out of reach of him because it _knew_ that he was dangerous today. 

He felt deadly. He felt fierce.

He felt frozen in the crosshairs, crowded up against his bedroom door with his hair still damp from showering and his father in his face. Neil puffed on his cigarette as hard as he did everything, so close that Billy could feel the heat of it as the tip blazed and then turned to ash.

Neil spat out words with a thinly veiled annoyance, like he was also holding back a fight that was supposed to happen. Susan had a fucking headache, he told him.

It was Billy’s goddamn _respect and responsibility_ to make sure that her stupid kid was fed.

Neil _ordered_ him to take perfect little Maxine, perfectly capable Maxine that could make a fucking bowl of cereal, to the diner so she could choke down cholesterol and fat, and call that shit breakfast. Billy’s jaw _clenched_.

Neil spoke around his cigarette, “Do you still have the gas money I gave you.”

“Yes.”

“Good,” He said, uncaring. “Use that to pay.”

Billy’s mouth filled with words, with swears, with the taste of blood from his bitten tongue. He could feel the cold ache of bruises hidden beneath his shirt, could feel them singing and begging for him to punch that cigarette down Neil’s fucking throat. _No_.

He wanted to pluck the cigarette from between Neil’s thin lips. He wanted to take a drag of it and flick it away, let it burn into the carpet of this shitty rental. He wanted to nod his head at the incredulous look that he would get, that would stall on Neil’s face before he rained down his storm of _respect and responsibility._

Billy wanted to tilt his head to the side, wanted to shrug his shoulders. He wanted to say with clear and enunciated words, _‘Susan can go fuck herself. Fuck you. Fuck all this shit, that kid isn’t my responsibility. Fucking asshole.’_

He wanted to swing hard and swift and knock the breath from his lungs. He wanted to kick his legs out at the knee and lay into him so hard that there was nothing left but blood and teeth. He wanted to laugh, and scream, and feel blood warm on his knuckles.

Instead, Billy bit the corners of his mouth and smothered down the need to fucking scream. He nodded.

He bit down on that undeniable spark of _something_ between his teeth. He grounded it all down into dust, feeling the fire of it heat up his soul with an inferno of his own burning. He could feel it crumble his bones with need and smoke up his lungs with want. He swallowed down the desire for a violent release.

He wouldn’t give Neil the satisfaction of giving him what he also wanted.

So, Billy nodded again, and he did as he was told. He said, “Yes, sir.”

Neil said, “Now.”

Billy didn’t say that there was a fucking ice age midwestern _hell_ outside of their windows and that his wet hair was going to turn to fucking icicles if he went out there like this. He didn’t say that he was only half-dressed and wasn’t wearing any fucking shoes.

He didn’t say _uh no,_ or _fuck off,_ or _why the fuck is your wife’s shitty daughter my responsibility? Where’s all my goddamn respect?_

He maintained eye contact as he grabbed his shoes, his jacket, and his backpack. He did as he was told without a word of complaint. He always did.

Watch Maxine. Find Maxine. Feed Maxine. Drive Maxine.

Raise Maxine.

_Fuck off, Susan._

There was a storm brewing that had yet to come.

It was something big, and deadly, with a fucking body count. It was something destructive, and beautiful, and just beneath the surface with all the sheer force of gale force winds so strong that they toppled over trees. It was something that swung with closed fists, that hit hard, that screamed, and laughed, and didn’t _stop_.

He _was_ the storm that shattered glass windows, that broke through locks and knocked in doors, and broke pretty boys with good intentions and big doe eyes.

He _thrived_ in the storm.

He _lived_ in them. He _was_ the storm.

He was truly _alive_ in the moments that hurricanes blew through with fury and unforgiving devastation. He was the calm at the center of the eye of the storm, the peace as the whole world faded into a special kind of hell. 

He was the soundless, noiseless _nothing_ as everything went silent within him. He was the raw animalistic instinct that overcame him as he hit, hit, hit until his knuckles split, and his breathing heaved, and everything was broken. It was never his _fault_.

He was pushed to it. He was _lead_ to it. He was _lied_ to and had to teach a lesson. It was never his fault, but he _enjoyed_ it.

He felt _excited_.

There was an electrical charge in the snowy air and Maxine seemed to feel it too.

All her hard edges, snotty glares, and adolescent attitude was faded. She was softer than she normally was, calmer and complacent, and _reasonable_ like she never fucking was.

She was all the ways that she _should_ be but wasn’t.

She was quiet and nervous, and it was amusing.

She was a spring board with a hair trigger, ready to go off at the slightest sound or movement. She had startled when Neil snapped at her for trying to bother her mother. She jumped when Billy slammed the car door open and dropped into the driver’s seat.

She was all the things that she should have been.

She was _scared_ of him.

She tensed up when he cranked the music up, sucked in a breath when he pulled away from the curb. She tightened her grip on the door handle and the seatbelt like they’d protect her from him.

She told him softly, “We don’t have to go to the diner.”

She told him practically, “You can just drop me off wherever and I’ll skateboard the rest of the way to school.”

She told him insistently, “Billy, _slow down._ There’s ice on the road.”

There was a line drawn down the metaphorical sand between them.

It was drawn the moment that she fought back on that weird ass night at Jonathan Byers’ house, drawn the last night any storm had broken through the unrelenting anger inside of him to create something much deadlier. He had beaten in the face of her preppy rich babysitter and she had drugged him. She took a bat to his balls and demanded that _he_ listen.

 _She_ drew the line in the same. She set the terms.

Billy doesn’t break her shit anymore and she stayed out of his way. Neither of them discussed that night.

They don’t talk about anything because they don’t _talk_

They hate each other. Or more aptly, he fucking hated her, hated her lenience, hated her red freckled face and the way she and Susan pretend like they don’t know what happened when he and Neil _talked_. He hated carting her around, her dumbass friends, the way she was going to get them both fucking killed one day.

They don’t talk because she had nothing important to say.

She set the terms because she had a bat.

The line was drawn in the sand, but it was as thin as needle-pointed _ice_. Neither had passed it yet, but the tides were rising, and today was a different day. They both acknowledged the line, but it didn’t matter.

It didn’t matter at all.

Billy was destruction in wind and rain, and _power_. Truly, all he had been doing was indulging her stupidity at thinking that she ever had any control but that was over. The truce was broken because he was going to plow right over that line today.

He was going to destroy it.

He felt that same almost nervous energy now as he had felt on that strange night in November. He had spent that whole day trying to burn it off with ineffective ways.

He had _tried_ to keep his head down, tried to push the bad energy out of sight and mind. He tried to remind himself that Hawkins wasn’t Santa Monica, that storms were just fucking _rain_ here and there wasn’t too much that he could do without it getting back to Neil.

He couldn’t burn off the heat in his blood by cracking open his knuckles on some tourist’s jaw. He couldn’t rage, and scream, and start fights in bars that he shouldn’t have been allowed in.

He couldn’t do anything worthwhile, so he buried the energy beneath working out, and eating too much, and too loud music while getting ready for a date. He had planned to expel the rest of his bad energy between the legs of some country cow, but fucking Maxine had ruined that.

Maxine brought trouble onto herself and he couldn’t be blamed for that.

He had _tried_ to keep his head down but all energy and a sick kind of eager anticipation for _something_ had all bubbled back to the surface, it unearthed from his burying with a single slap to the face. It raged inside of him with his back against the shelves, with _respect and responsibility,_ and a single tear.

That energy bounced inside of him now. It grew and grew as his Camaro ate up the road, barreling fast down the street. He was going to destroy something pretty today.

He knew that he was.

There was a pretty little maroon BMW parked in the first parking spot at the diner with a perfectly unblemished layer of last night’s flurries laid on top of it like it had been there, untouched, for _hours_. It somehow beating out all the early morning commuters and passing-through truck drivers, remaining undisturbed.

Billy ran his tongue over his teeth as he pulled into park.

He eyed the car as he bared the cold wintery weather with damp hair and a jean jacket, licking his lips as he walked towards the diner doors. There was no snow beneath the tires. _Huh._

He sucked in a breath of warm air and the stench of burnt toast as his eyes roamed over the inhabitants of the diner, slotting everything into categories. Interesting and unimportant. Could fuck and don’t fuck with. Steve Harrington and _not._

He felt predatorial, felt carnivorous.

It felt good to feel this _hungry_.

In all the same way that he had felt dangerous, and hungry, and storming as he pulled his car into park outside of the Byer’s shitty little house in the middle of nowhere. He felt it as he stripped off his jacket, as he puffed on his cigarette, and in every step that he took towards that porch.

_Am I dreaming? Is that you, Harrington?_

Max put distance between them the moment that they stepped through the diner’s doors, building up her confidence and hard edges now that they were in the company of people that might give a damn. She shook off her hat, and her gloves, and unzipped her coat against the heat, she wasn’t even subtle about the steps she took away from him.

She was smart, particular and quick-thinking in a way that Billy wasn’t. She was resourceful and clever and didn’t solve problems with her fists, but she wasn’t _that_ smart.

She still gave it away. He should see the way the wavered between fearless and fearful, the flickering of it in her eyes. She gave away her dread and her anxiety, and the way she was still tip-toeing despite her apparent confidence.

She turned towards him, fiddling with a loose string on her hat, and she told him politely like she was taught, “I’m going to get a seat, I’ll order you coffee.”

She slipped off and slid into a booth near truckers because she thought that Billy would start shit near them, or that if he did than they’d have something to say about it.

She was smart like that, or at least, she liked to think that she was.

Billy didn’t see any sight of Steve in the diner, his eyes scanned over the crowd for a second time for ridiculous hair, for Bambi legs, for tired eyes that looked too vacant and empty. There was something wrong with Steve Harrington but the only problem of Harrington’s that Billy cared about was that he was not _here_.

Maxine thought that she was so smart, that she was the only one that was observant and clever, but she picked all that shit up from somewhere. That somewhere was _him_. He was observant, and clever, and he knew how to defuse a situation in the same way that he knew how to escalate it.

His mother used to say things like, _some people get addicted to the pain._

She used to say, _you love through the rough parts._

She used to say, _some people were made to break things and some people were made to mend. There is balance in God’s will, we have to trust in it._

Billy always thought that his mother was kind, and beautiful, but dumb as all fucking hell.

He thought that his mother should have taken her act on the road because he’d never seen someone bend over backwards and twist themselves up so spectacularly just to excuse the behavior of shitty men. Some men were evil, and abusive, and decorated violent intentions as lessons despite how nice their smiles were and how many times they said that they loved you.

She used to _tsk_ at Billy’s bad behavior. She used to say that there was a mean streak in him like that shit wasn’t _learned._ She used to say that _God this_ and _God that_ , like it excused any-fucking-thing. _God,_ it _pissed_ him off.

She was full of shit, the same way that his father was full of shit, the same way that the whole fucking goddamn world was nothing but shit. He broken things because he was _raised_ to think that if he broke enough shit than he’d get what he wanted, that if he was harder and tougher, and meaner than the next guy than no one would mess with him.

He was raised to believe that it was never his father’s fault, that bruises were just merit for hard learned lessons and that the only way to learn was to have it beaten into you.

Neil taught him that the same way that Neil taught _her_ that. They were broken people with screwed up mentalities, and he was the only one that fucking realized it.

Sure, he could change but Neil wasn’t fucking changing.

The whole goddamn world was running on this kind of bullshit and it was a lot of effort to unlearn shit that you grew up with.

Sure, he could be nicer.

From what he heard, Harrington had flipped a switch from douchebag to saint overnight but that wasn’t Billy. Steve Harrington was soft, and used money for influence, and it really _was_ more effective to make his points with his fists.

Billy noticed somebody’s breakfast left untouched at the booth in the back, some eggs and bacon, and three empty mugs of coffee. Somehow, he just _knew_.

“Can I help you, sugar?”

Billy twisted his straight-lined frown into a smirk, into a charming grin. He dropped his voice in a mock of a light Midwestern accent as his eyes dragged up long legs and a short skirted uniform to a nametag – _Emilia A._ and a gold stark sticker stuck next to it, “What can you do for me, doll?”

She laughed something flirty and bounced up onto her toes, her messy blonde curls bouncing in her ponytail as she pulled her pen from behind her ear, “Well, sugar, the mornin’ special is two sweet cream pancakes, three eggs sunny side up, and hickory smoked bacon.”

“Sounds perfect, babe,” He said smoothly, “Why don’t you bring that to my table over there and point me in the direction of the restrooms.”

“Right over there.”

“You’re a doll,” He told her dismissively, already walking towards the bathrooms. He didn’t hear a response if she gave one, unable to hear anything over the fire burning in his veins.

His hands _ached_ for some kind of pain.

His heart sung with all the rolling crashes of _something_.

The bathroom was small, gray-tiled, and smelt of bacterial disinfectant over piss on a good day. On this day, though, it smelt of berry and fruit and echoed with the sound of running water.

Billy wasn’t surprised to find Steve, he was expecting it.

He wasn’t expecting, however, for Harrington to be bent over the sink shirtless with his head under the stray, scrubbing some cheap mini-bottled shampoo out of his hair. He caught the door before it slammed shut and eased it closed before leaning against the backwall.

There was something wrong with Steve Harrington and he wasn’t the only one that noticed but he was the only one doing something about it.

 _Sure_.

That freak, Jonathan Byers, had cornered Harrington and picked his ass up out of a frozen parking lot but he lost him to the trees. He didn’t have a high ground to stand on, had extended him arms and came back empty so he gave up easily.

Billy had heard Max through the walls, whispering into a dumbass walkie-talkie about how they should maybe give Steve _space_. He listened to all her idiot friends trip over each other, shouting into the ether until Wheeler’s whiny voice sounded the loudest, it wasn’t their job to take care of Steve.

He was damn fucking right about that too.

Sure, all of Harrington’s so-called friends were _talking_ about helping him, or fixing him, or walking him through life because he was inapt at living. They were all talking but they weren’t _doing_ anything, Billy _was_ and none of it was good.

There was beauty in broken things and there was satisfaction in squeezing so tight that it shattered.

King Steve was no more and this, this was far too much _fun_.

Hawkins was _boring_ to a mind-numbing degree. It was a shit town of nothing, surrounded by miles of corn and wheat in all directions. It was a punishment and a hell, and he took his entertainment where it was best deserved.

Harrington _owed_ him his destruction.

He lied to him.

Billy leaned back against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest and watched the way Harrington wrung the water from his hair with his fingers. He watched him use the old t-shirt that he had left on the counter to dry his neck and to soak up excess water until his hair was wet but not dripping.

He grinned when Steve looked up into the mirror and realized that he wasn’t alone, the way his eyes went even wide and his face grew gaunter. He paled to a ridiculous degree as gasp pushed through his lips.

Billy just grinned even more when Steve touched numbly at his face and turned around like he could not believe the reflection in the mirror. He watched as Steve tried to put walls that they were too far passed for it to matter, his mouth working almost independent from his face, “Are you here to try to beat me up?”

He was shirtless and thinner than Billy ever really noticed. The curve of his ribs sticking out stark against pale flesh, his spine like spikes, and Billy licked over his bottom lip.

He didn’t have to _try_ to beat Harrington up. A strong wind could flatten him in this state, though Billy had never strayed too far from a fight, no matter how lopsided it was.

He snorted, “In your dreams, Harrington.”

In Steve’s dreams, Billy had a clipboard and a lab coat. In his dreams, Billy tortured El with electricity and swimming pools, and laughed manically. In his dreams, he was helpless to watch, he was too slow, and too late, and always just _watching_.

In Steve’s dreams, Lucas was bloody, and dead-eyed, and lifeless as Billy’s fist rained down vicious and mean. Steve was locked outside with broken ribs, clawing his way inside through splintered wood and Upside Down monsters. In his dreams, Billy was all smiles and said _pretty boy,_ said _I’m going to fucking kill you, Harrington,_ and he does.

In Steve’s dreams, Billy’s face cracked open, and split, and unfolded like rose petals and teeth. In his dreams, Billy scared him. He wasn’t going to kill him now because he _couldn’t,_ so Steve wasn’t scared. He was just tired.

It was evident on Steve’s face, “I don’t sleep.”

Billy wanted to roll his eyes and say, _no shit, Harrington_. He wanted to laugh, to mock him a little more and push him up against the wall until that fear was back in his eyes. He shrugged instead, made a sharp gesture with his hand and asked, “What’s all this?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Looks like a whore’s bath, I supposed that’s fitting,” Billy said, and Steve’s eyes sharpened into a glare for half a second before he turned back to the sink. He slipped on a new shirt, ran his hands into his hair but not actually fixing it.

Billy clenched his jaw at blatantly being ignored and pushed a little more, “So, what happened, pretty boy? Did Mommy and Daddy finally get tired of carrying your worthless ass and toss you, or this your idea of a social experiment? Seeing how the poor people live, rich boy?”

There was an insecurity that hung onto Steve like a second coat and a bad smell, like his big wide eyes and his stupid hair. It was present in all those things that made him weak, it wobbled in his voice and shined in dark vacant eyes.

Billy was told that King Steve ruled the school and gave it all up for love. He was told that Steve Harrington was the coolest of the cool, but all Billy saw was a shell. He was a husk.

It wasn’t going to take much more to grind him into dust.

Steve blinked and answer simply, “I wasn’t home last night.”

“And where was the great King Steve, Harrington?”

Steve’s set jaw read, _none of your fucking business._

His pinked cheeks seethed, _I fucking hate you._

His skittish brown eyes pleaded almost desperately, _don’t hurt me_.

And then everything died on his face and he said pointed, “Out.”

“With – _someone_ ,” He added because Midwesterns always overshared way too much, because he knew that Billy would get it out of him so why fight it. He rolled his eyes up slowly to the tiles between the mirror and the drop ceiling, mauling over the words in his mouth, “I had to – get out of there before-“

He paused, his tongue darting out of the corner of his mouth before finishing, “Before the man of the house woke up.”

Billy smirked, “That sounds like bullshit.”

Steve flinched at the words but gritted his teeth, “You would know, being an expert in bullshit.”

“Exactly, pretty boy,” He said deadly, tonguing over his teeth as Harrington stiffened. “So, do me the curtsey of not lying to me. You know how I feel about that.”

Steve didn’t say anything, so Billy did, “Because if I remember and I do, lying didn’t work out so well for you. You got such a pretty face, Harrington, you should try not to ruin it.”

“What do you want?”

“What was it that got you kicked out, pretty boy?” He pressed. “What was it that pushed Mommy and Daddy over the edge, split ends?”

Billy tilted his head to the side and taunted, “What’s so hard in your perfect little life?”

Harrington pissed him off to a level that Billy didn’t really understand. He looked at Steve with his closed and sunken eyes, looking like the smudges of bruises. He looked at his jaw set, and his teeth tight, and _seethed_.

Harrington had no respect, no responsibility. He had everybody making excuses for his bad playing on the court, for inability to fight back, for bad grades, and dark circled eyes, and all the things that Billy _never_ got away with.

Harrington lived in a big house with parents that weren’t there, in a town that kissed his ass. He had no reason to look like this, to be right here, to be falling to pieces so spectacularly when everything was so goddamn easy, it was – “Bullshit.”

“What?”

“It’s bullshit,” Steve repeated, his eyes sliding open to half-masts. “Everything that you say is bullshit, that you think that you _know_ about me and my parents. What, just because Tommy fed you some shit about me, that you think you know?”

“Tommy _lies_ ,” He continued, speaking through his teeth. “I thought that you were _so_ smart, but you don’t even check your facts? You’re assuming about stuff that you don’t even know.”

“What I do know is that Mommy and Daddy called half the team looking for your ass last night,” He said, dropping the game. “Someone thought that it would be funny to give them my number and they called, that makes this my problem now.”

“So, what was it?” Billy demanded. “Have a little fight with Mom and Dad and take off like a bitch?”

Steve opened his mouth to speak but Billy’s movements were quick and sharp, and hard. He never had care for being soft as he grabbed Steve’s wrist suddenly. He looked at the splotchy bumps on it, at the scrapped over and rubbed raw skin disappearing up his sleeve, “What’s this?”

“It’s – nothing.”

“Is that what you’ve been up to, drugs?” He asked, “Was is this, track marks?”

“I – it’s a _rash_ ,” Steve scoffed, trying and failing to pull his wrist back. “From stress. That happens.”

Billy smirked, “Ae you sure that’s all it is?”

Steve stopped, ripping his arm away from him and cradling it to his chest with a harsh breath. Something inside of his shuddered and then it died.

And he died, and Billy felt cold.

He took a step back on instinct.

He didn’t get in another word before losing Harrington in his rush out of the door. He was nowhere to be seen when Billy walked out.

 

There were four chairs outside of the principal’s office.

They were stiff-backed and a gaudy yellow and maroon combination, lopsided and tilted, and never made for comfort. They were occupied.

Dacarli, Dalton, Gonski, Hargrove.

_Dalton, Gonski, Hargrove, chair._

Billy didn’t look up as Bobby Dalton’s chair creaked as he stood, as his shoes squeaked onto the floor as he walked into the office. He moved another chair up when the door was closed – _Gonski, Hargrove, chair, chair._

He didn’t look up from his slouched over position, didn’t say a word. He didn’t bother to even open his eyes after moving into Gonski’s chair when the seat next to him whined in protest about being sat in. He didn’t even bother to stop tapping out the beat of Too Young to Fall in Love with his feet.

He was _bored_.

He was the _sixth_ guy on the basketball team to get pulled out of third person today and the four that came out of that door, had exited it pale with their eyes on the floor. He was sure that Joe Gonski was going to do the same. _Wimp_.

He wished that he could go ahead and tell the principal that he didn’t know who it was graffitiing dicks onto the walls outside of the locker room or who was getting hot and heavy with the coaching assistant. He wanted to move on with his fucking life.

If Joe wasn’t such a yappy fucker.

“William Hargrove, isn’t it?”

His eyes snapped up.

The seat next to him wasn’t occupied by one of his teammates, wasn’t _Harrington_ like it should have been, wasn’t _Hill_. It wasn’t a teacher, or a guidance counselor, or the cute little receptionist with the perky boobs.

It was a woman that he’d never seen before.

She was dressed too sharply to work at the school, in clothes that were too nice and jewelry too flashy. She was too old to be a new student but took a great deal of precaution to appear much younger than she actually was.

At a distance, he would have thought that she was perfect.

Up close, she was still beautiful.

There were signs of age and wear on her face, make up covering up the start of wrinkles and a small childhood scar on her chin. It didn’t matter though, with red ruby lips plumped into a pout and big brown eyes under a head of thick perfectly laid waves, she was a beauty no matter the age.

He let his mouth curl into a charming smirk, “Billy. Do I know you?”

“I don’t believe so.”

“Couldn’t have,” He grinned, leaning forward to speak in a low California hum when she seemed keen on having his interest.

He knew women like this, the girls that were pretty that grew up beautiful and feared aging. He knew all the compliments that they were desperate for, the way to bring a blush up to their cheeks and con them into overpaying for summer jobs, cleaning pools.

He told her smoothly, “I would remember a face as pretty as yours, I’m sure of it.”

She had rows of perfect bleached white teeth when she smiled, dazzling like she belonged on TV, “My, aren’t you just a charmer.”

“I suppose,” He laughed. “Are you in trouble, sitting outside the principal’s office like this. Must’ve done something bad.”

“No, that’s not the case today,” She sighed, folding her purse neatly by her heels. “I’m picking someone up actually.”

“Your little sister?” He asked like the answer wasn’t obviously that she was picking up her child. “Are you planning a girl’s day or something.”

Her lips flickered up, “Nothing of the sort, Mr. Hargrove. I’m picking up my son, if you would believe that.”

“Son?” He leaned back in the chair, whistling loudly as he dragged his eyes down the front of her blouse, down the narrow of her waist and long covered legs to those high heeled shoes. “There’s no way, ma’am. There’s no way that you’re a – a _mom?_ An aunt, I could believe but a mom, really?”

She laughed – _hook, line and sinker,_ he thought as the faintest of blushes worked onto her face, “You really are a little prince charming, Mr. Hargrove. Is that why you’re outside of the principal’s office?”

“Part of it,” He said smoothly. “I gave you my name, am I going to get yours?”

Her mouth curled into a smile before her lips parted but then closed it. Her brown eyes flickered passed Billy, “Stevie.”

Billy followed her gaze. _Oh_.

Oh.

Harrington looked remarkably like his mother, Billy thought absently.

They filled all the same spaces as each other. They were both Bambi legs and big eyes, thick eyelashes and thicker hair, pretty and soft the way that most people grew out of.

Steve met his gaze with accusation.

“That’s your-“ Billy paused incredulous, mouth falling into a smirk. He drawled out, “Well, Harrington, why didn’t you tell me that your mommy was so damn pretty?”

Mrs. Harrington’s amusement had disappeared at the same rate that it appeared, and she gathered her purse from the floor. She tossed her hair over her shoulder and straightened her purse’s leather strap, “Steve, go to your locker and gather your things. I’m here to pick you up.”

Steve shuffled his feet in the doorway, “ _Ma.”_

“Stevie, baby,” She said in a tone that was all sweet and warning all at once, her smile dropping to something more severe. It was realer than any of the smiles that she’d given Billy but faded quickly back into plastic.

There was something disingenuous about her, it set Billy’s teeth to an edge. He watched Steve shift on his feet again, looked uncomfortably small and fragile, and tired as his shoulders dropped forward, “I have a trig test.”

“I’ve already spoken with your teacher.”

“There’s a lab in chemistry today.”

“I’ve spoken to _all_ of your teachers, sweetheart,” She said, buttoning her coat back up. “Now hush, Stevie, and go get your things.”

“Ma,” Steve all but whined, ignoring the way that Billy’s eyes were drinking all of this up with something like amusement, something like analytical scrutiny. His eyes lit up at the way Steve grounded his feet into the floor and planted them. “What is this, Ma? Why are you – it’s _school._ I just can’t leave to – to… You can’t just _be_ here.”

“I think that I can, Steven,” She said sharply, primly. She took a step towards him and said in a serve whisper, “When my son runs away into the night and doesn’t call once. Do you know how worried sick I was?”

“I’m surprised you noticed.”

“Steven.”

“Ma.” Steve’s whine turned into an accusation, his eyes narrowing with it, “What are you trying to do? Why are you here, why is _he_ here?”

“Stevie, baby,” She cooed, reaching to take his head into her hands but he batted her hands away. She, instead, pushed a stray hair out of his face. “I have been gone for nearly a month, sue a mother for wanting to spend the day with her child. Now, shoo. Off with you, Stevie, go get your backpack.”

She gave him a tap to get him moving but Steve didn’t move an inch. If anything, he looked more accusing at her and at Billy, “What is it that you’re trying to do, Ma? I already told you that I’m not talking to-“

It felt like things were building into something stormy and deadly, and Billy was _excited_ but then the office door opened. 

Joe Gonski walked out. Principal Campbell walked out. Chief Hopper walked out. Steve looked devastated.

His whole face cracked into some wide-eyed misery. His lips parted like he had the breath knocked out of him, but nothing passed through them. His voice was barely a whisper as Joe filtered passed him, “What did you _do?_ ”

Billy’s eyes flickered from Steve’s awful face to that of his mother’s stoic shock, watching her set her jaw and then play stupid. Steve caught that too because she did not get a word in edgewise, “I _said_ that I didn’t want to talk to anybody.”

“You said that you didn’t want to go to the police, Steven,” She told him. “I didn’t go to the police, I went to your principal and he called the police. You’re my son, Steve, and someone on the basketball team _beat_ you.”

“I cannot _believe_ that you-“

He sounded on a vertical edge, sliding into hysterics with no traction to stop him, and it was beautiful to watch until his mother’s voice came in rational and clear, and exactly what no one needed, “Steven.”

He sighed, pushing breath out of his lungs harshly and loud. He rolled his eyes, “ _No,_ I’m going to class, Ma.”

“Steven,” She snapped as he turned his back to her. Billy watched her face morph into something false, smiling because they were in the company of Campbell and Hopper.

She closed the space between her and Steve and pulled on his jacket so that it was righted. She smoothed out the ceases and tsked that it was wrinkled, and she spoke in a voice that Billy knew all too well. It was a threat with a smile, “I won’t ask twice.”

“You’re not asking at all,” Steve snapped, digging his fingernails into his wrist almost nervously. “You never _listen_ to me and I’m _not_ going anywhere with you. Go home.”

“Steven,” She repeated, voice losing all that fake society friendliness to something frustrated and real. Steve paused at it, sucking in a harsh breath as she held out her hands, “You can go to class but give your keys, now.”

“Ma.”

“Steve, don’t talk back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A FEW THINGS: 
> 
> (1) One hundred percent, the next chapter is going to up the intensity. I know that a lot of people have commented about how this fic has related to their own anxiety and depression so keep an eye on the tags for updates to avoid triggers
> 
> (2) I'm not crazy about the focus on Billy but I was a big fan of changing my music from my 'migraine playlist' (basically soft sounds) to Motley Crue for a week.
> 
> (3) I'm pretty sure that I can wrap this fic up in five or six more chapters.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BIG WARNING:   
> This chapter touches on some pretty dark stuff and Steve's paranoia pushes him to a dangerous edge. I added to the tags so if this story is trigger, please be prepared for what you're getting into.

The kiss on his forehead was feather light.

It was as light as the scent of minty toothpaste on the breath that ghost over his cheek, as the gentle squeeze and the soft dig of polished fingernails into the flesh of his shoulders, and the subtle disappointment in a fake smile. It was as light as the words that it followed, “Stevie, darling, I wish that you wouldn’t make me do this.”

It was as light as he felt after dropping his keys in her waiting hand, weightless and untethered in a dark ether. It was an insubstantial gesture, meaningless in its stupidity. It had as little meaning behind it as her next words, “I don’t want to be the bad guy here, honey.”

It was his fault, it always was.

It insubstantial and stupid, a gesture with so little meaning behind it that it amounted to the same as her words, “We’re all trying to help you.”

It amounted to nothing.

It was meaningless as, “I’m your mother, sweetheart.”

As pointless as, “I only want what’s best for you.”

As worthless as, “I love you, Steven.”

It was traitorous and futile, and as dumb as, “Just tell Chief Hooper what it was that happened to you and then this will all be over. You’ll feel better.”

It was a throwaway, a careless act just to prove that she could look like she cared. It was as hollow and insignificant as her hands resting on his shoulder, as the all too sweet smile fixed on her face. She was confectioner sugar and Splenda ice tea, too sweet to be real.

It was a useless act, as empty and void as her pretty words and her soft comforting voice. It was the perfect mimic of a caring mother, and only Steve could see it.

It was a stupid and ineffective bullshit _lie_ because he didn’t _want_ this.

He told her that he didn’t want to talk to the police, that he didn’t want to do anything about it. He just _needed_ to get it off his chest and she was proving all the reasons why he shouldn’t have.

This wasn’t for the benefit of any government, wasn’t even a _push_ for some hidden agenda like when his father ran for city council and they spent a summer volunteering at church and donating money. It was just to be _mean_.

He told her that he was scared, that he got hurt and felt worse. He was upset, and always tired, and he _didn’t_ want to go to the police. He told her in confidence as his mother, as a therapist, and it didn’t fucking matter because she always knew _best_. They always had to do what she wanted.

He was trembling. She had to know, had to be able to _feel_ it but she just turned her eyes away from him. She cocked her head to the side to look at Principal Campbell with fake polite nicety, “Would it trouble you too much if Hopper and I spoke with Steve in your office for a moment?”

 _No._ He didn’t _want_ this. God.

God. He didn’t want any of this and she had to know that.

Campbell bowed his head and complied in the way that anybody with a brain would comply to one of the school’s biggest donors. He clasped his hands together awkwardly and gestured into the room, “Of course, Mrs. Harrington. Take all the time you need.”

It didn’t matter what Campbell said because Steve had said _no_.

He didn’t need to talk to the police, or to her, or to anybody. He had told her that he was scared, and hurt, and tired but none of that was her fucking concern. Why should this be?

Why _now_?

He was _lost_ and there was no returning, and she only wanted to focus on one night in November. She wasn’t even _home_ for three weeks after that night, didn’t answer the phone or return his calls for two of those weeks. She did _nothing_.

He was chastised for fighting. They didn’t even ask if he was _okay_ until he very clearly wasn’t.

It was just bullshit to pretend to care now.

The government didn’t care about his fight with Billy and he knew in his heart that she didn’t either. This had to be a show and he didn’t know what for.

It didn’t matter, bullshit was bullshit and they were family that excelled in it.

Steve shouldn’t even be surprised.

She was always like this. She always cared about the wrong aspects of him, always cared too late or too little, or not at all. Everything has always been exactly like this moment – out of his control.

This was just a short story or excerpt for her next book, and they were all playing their parts exactly how she’d written them. Only Steve could see that this was manufactured feelings, and lies, and family picture perfect manipulations to get the story she wanted.

Only, Steve wasn’t playing his part.

He should. He should just allow it.

He should let it all pour out of him, emptying him because this was all that he had left to hold on to. It was easy to surrender to her, to give her the source material that she wanted and accept the hug that he’d get.

It was so _easy_ to just concede, to give in and give up because everything was too fucking _hard_. This was too much.

 _No_.

He planted his feet into the ground when she pulled on his sleeve. He grew roots and statuesque when she wrapped her hand around his bumpy wrist and squeezed it with a light warning. He casted down his eyes away from her expectant ones, away from Hargrove’s hungry ones, away from Hopper’s. He forced himself to _breathe_.

He ignored the tightness in his chest, the pounding of his heart and the burning behind his eyes. He clicked his teeth shut and squeezed his hands tight. He felt like he was being engulfed in flames.

He didn’t say a goddamn thing.

It didn’t matter, no one ever _listened_ to him.

“I – I have class,” He grounded through his teeth, annoyed when the words were barely a whisper. He pulled his hand away from hers and said almost apologetic, “I – I have class, I have to leave.”

 _Poor Stevie Harrington_.

Billy’s voice was a low and calculated taunt, and it followed him in measured easy steps out of the office door. It walked with him down an empty hallway and around the corner, and it echoed through Steve’s back as he collided with lockers with the same cheery breath that had said, “Don’t worry, Mrs. Harrington, I’ll get your boy.”

It haunted Steve like the Upside Down and the future that he had once had. It haunted him like flickering Christmas lights, and nightmare monsters, and the way that Billy Hargrove _always_ haunted him. It was step by hurried step, and fast approaching. It was laughter.

It was the lightning strike of too much electricity as a tight hand curled into his shoulder, around his wrist, and the groves of the lockers behind him dug into his back. It was the sweet and pitiful lie, “Don’t worry, Mrs. H, Stevie and I are good friends. I’ll talk to him.”

It was bullshit but it was the kind of bullshit that Steve knew what to do with. It was all the same friendliness laced up in a sneer, in concealed aggression, in secret disdain that he had ignored in Nancy’s face. It was hatred covered up and decorated into something socially acceptable.

Billy Hargrove was charming to a tee.

He could, and has, and bragged about charming the panties off any pretty girl that he got into his backseat. Steve had watched him sweettalk himself off the bench during practice, out of detention, into the god graces of every teacher’s all-to-forgiving heart.

It was what made him dangerous, a charm like that could make you forget that he was a monster beneath it. He could kill Steve and almost has, and people would still be surprised.

Billy Hargrove was the promise of fallen dominos and fallen empires.

He was a tornado siren, and the pickup of wind, and he was captive in the destruction that he caused. He was the human personification of flickering lights and monsters that were all too real. He was starving for a fight and he wore his hunger on his sleeve.

He _was_ a Demogorgon in flesh, and teeth, and a smiling face.

Billy grinned in all the ways that promised pain, and bruises, and being shoved into the lockers or knocked down during practice. It was all sharp teeth and barbed words, and a tongue like dynamite.

There were flames that danced blue in his eyes with excitement and electricity, and a darkness that ran deep. Billy was the embodiment of the tunnels that he didn’t know how to escape, pressing into him and stealing the breath from his lungs with his fist pressed into Steve’s chest.

He was a Demogorgon-spy hybrid. He was a nightmare.

Billy Hargrove was the Pandora’s box of horrible world-ending things, and Steve wanted to open it. He wanted to fold back the petals to teeth and be eaten alive.

He wanted destroyed.

There was something so charged and electric in the air, like atomic particles were swinging in the circles and coming closer, and closer, and promised explosion if they met. The whole world between them felt explosive, deadly, and almost sweet with violence.

There were sparks on Billy’s words, his tongue like the strike of flint with a single warning, “Harrington.”

_Harrington, there’s no escape. Harrington, accept this. Harrington, I’m going to fucking kill you._

Billy ran his tongue over his bottom lip and smirked with an open mouth. He pressed his fist harder into Steve’s sternum, “ _Stevie_.”

_Stevie, you traitor. Stevie, you rat. Stevie, your great big stupid mouth._

“I didn’t say anything to her,” Steve said in a single breath, not knowing why he even _cared_ what Billy through. It wasn’t like he was going to believe him. “I didn’t say anything about what happened that night. I said that I was jumped and-“

Steve took in a breath, breathing endlessly into the emptiness inside of him and forcing out nothing, “She comes up with her own solutions to problems that no one asked her to fix. She always has to be right, but I didn’t – didn’t say anything. I wouldn’t.”

“Yeah, that’s total bullshit,” Billy said dismissively, his fingers curling in and digging into the fabric of Steve’s shirt to the flesh beneath it. He pressed into the bone and sneered, sounding almost disappointed, “I always knew that you were a bitch, Harrington. It was only a matter of time that you ran crying to someone that would give a shit about keeping your face pretty.”

“I didn’t say anything. She came up with her conclusion with half the facts.”

“This better not blow back on me.”

“It _won’t_.”

Billy tilted his head to the side, craning his neck so far back that he could see around the corner to the office door before looking back at him, “So, must’ve been your daddy that kicked you out then.”

“No, let me guess,” Billy continued, laughing into his taunt as he tapped his fingers hard against Steve’s breast bone. “Mommy Dearest in there wanted to kiss all your boo-boos away and cuddle up with her baby, but something finally snapped in your old man and he decided that it was about time that his son wasn’t such a little bitch.”

Billy’s mouth curled into a mean smirk, “He kick you to the curb so the cold could toughen you up, or did you run away?”

“Fuck _off_ , Hargrove.”

Billy laughed, and it sounded manic in a single harsh breath. His eyes dancing in the fire like this was exactly what he wanted. It was like he _finally_ wanted what Steve had been _begging_ for. He wanted to fight.

His voice held all the same desperate _need_ for a fight, for that _something_ that pushed him over the edge. He wanted an excuse to let loose and destroy it all, and Steve finally had it in him to take it. Billy could see it in Steve’s eyes and he grinned, “There’s that fire in ya, pretty boy.”

Billy didn’t just want a fight.

That edge that he was walking, that his voice trembled on the cliffside of, promised more than just a fight. Billy needed pushed over so he could _destroy_ something, neither would be satisfied until he did.

His pupils were dilated, and his lips parted before his tongue swiped across his lip again. He pushed in closer until there was nothing between them, “Or what, pretty boy? What are _you_ going to _do_ if I don’t fuck off?”

Steve shoved him.

It was weak with arms that felt leaded but knocked Billy back half a step, it showed that he would fight back. Billy laughed loudly, shoving back so hard that Steve’s back bounced off the lockers with reverberation. His breath knocked from his lungs.

Billy was back on him, crowding up into his face and leaving no room for escape. He took the hand that Steve had brought up to block him, wrapping his fingers around his wrist and tightening the hold, “Feel that, pretty boy?”

Billy squeezed his wrist so tight that the bones grinded and ached. Steve’s pulse jumped into his throat and his ears, throbbing in the raised bumps that he had scratched thin on his wrist as Billy pressed tighter.

He laughed, licking over his teeth and his bottom lip, and spoke in a whisper. His thumb dug into Steve’s pulse point until it felt like his fast beating heart was vibrating through both of them, “Do you feel that, Harrington? The beating, can you feel it?”

Steve nodded.

It was all he could feel.

Billy’s face cracked into a Demogorgon smile, “Looks like there’s still some life left in you, Harrington. What are you going to do with it?”

Steve thought that maybe that was supposed to be a challenge, or dig at his appearance, or something insulting instead of assuring him that he was still here, visible and alive. He was still breathing and that felt _spiraling_.

What was he going to do with it? _End it._

_Shut up._

Steve had no future, no friends. The government was probably going to kill him, or the gate was going to open up again, or he was going to die of sleep deprivation. He had no _life_ left in him, he was just breathing.

He was going to do the only thing that he could still choose.

He was going to give up. He was going to conceded and give in and give away every last ounce of kindling inside of him so that this fire could keep burning until it destroyed him. He was going to push Billy over the edge and let the world fade white around him.

He was going to get what he _wanted_ , for once.

He thought that he wanted Nancy. He _really_ thought that it could still work between them and then everything would go back to normal. He thought that he could be King Steve, be a babysitter, be anything but he was _broken_.

The only thing that he had left to choose was to choose how he wanted to give up. He licked his dry lips and cracked his mouth open to speak, to tell Billy that what he wanted to do with the rest of his life was to let him end it bloody but then – “Hargrove.”

Billy dropped Steve’s wrist and took a step back immediately, it felt like an ocean had poured in between them. It felt like all of Steve’s fire was extinguished and gone, like he was lost at sea. Billy would never break him.

Billy’s whole demeanor changed from a Demogorgon to a man, and it wasn’t what Steve wanted. It wasn’t what he _needed._ He didn’t need this front from Billy, didn’t need the grin as fake as his mother’s smile.

He smiled like he was innocent, and charming, and Steve’s _best friend_ , and looked back at Hopper’s crossed arms and frowned face halfway between them and the office door, “Yes, sir?”

“In here, now.”

Steve didn’t think that he believed in the idea of hell anymore, the though occurring to him suddenly as Hopper approached even closer and Billy stepped even farther away. He didn’t think that he believe his grandmother’s words about smiling gods, and having faith, and tragedies only happening fast. He didn’t believe in purgatory or nightmares anymore.

He didn’t even believe in the possibility for redemption, for anything to ever be better than it was right now. This was _it_. This was as good as he was ever going to feel.

He believed in the Upside Down and the monster that he’d seen. He believed that Nancy was happier without him, that the party hated him, that spies were going to kill him. He believed that this was _it_.

Nothing could get better, nothing could change.

He was never going to get the one thing that he wanted because everything that has ever happened to him had been leading to this day, and this moment, and the crushing heartache of watching Billy Hargrove walk away.

This was what was real.

All of this was tangible, and suffocating, and mean because once again, the only think that he wanted was being taken away. It was all just so mean.

He breathed in and it tasted like blood. He breathed out and he closed his eyes. He didn’t respond when Hopper asked, “You doing alright, kid?”

He didn’t say anything when Hopper asked him, “Is there anything that you want to talk about? It’s just me and you out here.”

Steve smiled something watery. He gave up, and he gave in, and he walked away.

_Poor, poor Stevie Harrington._

The words approached like waves, lapping over him and filling him with cold impersonal hallway chatter. Everybody was talking about the basketball team being interrogated by the chief of police, about Steve’s messed up face last November, about how everybody knew that it was Billy’s doing but no one was saying anything. _Poor Steve_.

It was all whispered variation of the same shit, receding and pooling around his feet. He trudged through it and felt cold. He said nothing when Tommy stopped him and told him that he told his mother, and Hopper, and Principal Campbell about the sleeping pills.

He looked regretful and apologetic, and said, “I ain’t no rat but your mom was accusing me of _hitting_ you and like, I can’t get in trouble with my parents again, man. You get that.”

Steve smiled, and he didn’t care, and he forced himself to brush it off. He forced himself to keep breathing, and walking, and sitting in class.

It all washed over Steve’s open wounded cuts, over every insecurity that had been ripped open and rubbed raw, every part of him that was broken and torn to pieces. It burnt like salt in an infection with everybody’s smug and self-satisfying _glee_ at just knowing that Hawkins’ High School’s king had fallen into a miserable defeat.

Steve ignored it.

He put his head down and he forced himself through English, through Geometry with one step in front of another through a rising tide of garbage. He forced himself to breathe, to blink. To be human. To breathe. To not cry when Mrs. Gonzales asked if he was okay after class.

He didn’t need any of this. He didn’t ask for it. He didn’t _want_ it.

He didn’t need Nancy and her sympathy coming up to him in the lunch line, bumping her shoulder into his like she sometimes did when they were dating. He didn’t need or want her pensive sad frown, or her fake caring eyes, or the soft way that she asked if he was okay. It was pity.

He couldn’t do this anymore.

It was a settling and solid realization that he was _done_. It was _weighted_ , and heavy, and he was going to fucking follow through with it. He couldn’t do any of this. He _wasn’t_ going to.

He couldn’t humor Tommy’s bullshit apology or the way his _caring_ gave way to sneering once he turned his back. He couldn’t stand in the hallway while Billy torn him down into pieces when there was no promise that his endurance would be met with a satisfying ending.

He could just stand there anymore and let more and more bullshit be piled onto him when he already couldn’t breathe. He felt fucking _horrible_ all the time.

God, he felt _weak_. And hurt. And frustrated.

He wasn’t doing this anymore.

He was _done_.

He knew it in the moment that he dumped his lunch tray into the trash and walked away, he was never going to see Nancy again. He knew passed Tommy and Carol at their old table and walked out the door, as he watched his mother drive off in his father’s Lincoln that this was the last time that he was ever doing any of this. He was done.

He knew it in the moment that Hooper offered him a light in the parking lot as the bell signified the end of lunch. He knew it when Hopper asked what the hell all of this was even about like people weren’t walking passed them back into the school, like they couldn’t _hear,_ and Hargrove wasn’t somewhere like the fucking ghost that he was

He knew it deep in his broken soul as he forced his voice steady and low around a cigarette that he didn’t even want. He kept his eyes distant on the snowy horizon and his BMW at the end of the parking lot, telling Hopper the same fucking lie that he told him in November. He stood there, half-frozen in the parking lot of the school that he once ruled, and he lied about what actually happened to one of a handful of people that he could be honest with.

He told Hopper that he had been hurt in the Upside Down, that a Demo-dog got the best of him, and the kids saved his ass. He told him that his mother overreacted to the hospital bill for his concussion, that it was nothing.

And Hopper listened.

Hopper stood there on the balls of his feet, bundled up in his jacket, and he let Steve tell him this whole bullshit lie before telling him that he knew the truth. Dustin had told him a month ago how it really went down.

Dustin told him about Billy and that night, about Steve protecting them in the Upside Down and freaking out in the car. He told him about Billy, and the bullying that Steve kept denying. Dustin told him about how they all thought that Steve had PTSD, and was failing school, and how he didn’t sleep anymore. He told him how Steve was sad.

Steve wasn’t allowed to have anything.

He wasn’t allowed to have his car, or his popularity, or the girl that he so madly loved. He wasn’t allowed his agency, or his name, or any of his goddamn secrets.

He wasn’t allowed to live, or die, or have peace of mind.

It was bullshit.

He had nothing left to take but everybody kept taking.

He stood there, and he listened as Hopper talked about all these rehashed things that he’d heard from other people. He listened to Hopper talk about how what they saw in November was difficult for all of them and how it was healthy to talk to people who knew.

He stood, and he listened, and he felt more and more empty. Hopper clapped him on the shoulder, telling him that everybody was getting together at the Byers’ house this weekend, “I expect to see you there, kid.”

Steve wasn’t even _invited_.

Hopper told him about how everybody was bringing a dish so that Joyce didn’t have to do all the cooking, that they were planning on fixing up the rest of the house and painting the walls so wear something that he didn’t care to get dirty. He talked like Steve had been invited or even knew about it.

He told him that his door was always open, that Joyce felt the same way, said it in the kind of voice that meant that they’d been talking about him. _The Talk Shit About Steve club._

Steve nodded, and he waited until Hopper walked away and got into his truck. He waited a blue Buick pulled into the visitor’s lot and Dr. Winston walked into the school, undoubtedly at his mother’s request.

He would have laughed if he didn’t think he would cry.

He had to leave.

He snuffed out the cigarette and he dug his fingernails into his hands until it hurt. He ignored everything that had been said to him that day as he pushed off the backwall and marched across the parking lot. He had purpose. He had to go.

He used to be somebody in Hawkins.

He used to be _something_ , he thought bitterly as he approached his car. He used to be okay, but he wasn’t anymore.

He used to have his King Steve status, have Tommy, have Nancy, have a future that he could _do_ something with. He used to have a life that was _okay_ and sometimes he was happy. He used to be really good at being what people wanted him to be.

More and more, he was realizing that he couldn’t be any of that anymore. Not a king, not a person, not a handsome son or a pretty face.

It was a startling clarity of _nothing_ and it washed over his with a stinging cold numbness like _poor_ _Stevie._

There were footprints in the light layering of snow that followed behind the taunt with a swaggering walk and a cigarette between teeth. Billy walked around the car as Steve ran his hands on the smooth underside of the door handles. He pulled but there was no give. _Locked._

Steve scratch at a scab on his wrist until it bled, pressing down on the blood-sticky lump to something hard and swollen beneath the surface. He moved his thump over the skin, dragging the lump over the bone uncomfortably before dropping his hand.

He breathed in and he breathed out. He thought logically, _he had a spare key._

“Poor, poor little Stevie, Harrington,” Billy mocked, following like a shadow. There was amusement behind his eyes, his face lighting up with it. It was his Camaro that was double-parked into half the parking spot right next to Steve’s car and he leaned back against it just to watch.

He had a baseball with him when Steve finally looked up at him, tossing it into the air and catching it absently. Somewhere in the back of Steve’s head, he was reminded of Max mentioning once that she was thinking about trying out for the softball team.

Steve wondered if that was something that they did together, that maybe Billy dropped the psychopathic act every once in a while to teach her how to play like a decent big bother. It was almost nice to think that maybe Billy wasn’t so awful all the time.

If it was any other day, he might have cared enough to ask.

Steve pulled on the driver side handle again, and Billy laughed sarcastically, “How the might have fallen, King Steve. A pedestrian now, the horror.”

“Fuck off, Hargrove.”

Billy laughed way too loudly for it to be genuine, tossing the ball as Steve felt around fender over his tires for where he’d stuck the spare key.

Steve ran his hand up under the bumper and then under the handle on the trunk, trying to remember if he still had a spare key duct taped to the underside or if his paranoia had caused him to move it after his fall out with Tommy.

He sighed and rubbed his eyes, feeling more and more like his spare was in the glove compartment. Billy wasn’t looking to fight here, he just wanted to be mean so, “Leave me alone, Hargrove.”

“All you had to do was spent time with Mommy Dearest,” Billy latched on to the bit of Steve’s attention that he had, to the tired frustration beneath the surface. “It must be so hard to have everything that you could ever want.”

Everything that he wanted? _Bullshit._

Billy was rewriting history to justify his own bullshit feelings the same way that his mother was just _helping_ him. They were almost the same person, taking from Steve what they wanted and when they wanted, and manipulating him for their desired outcome.

The realization of it cheapened this.

Everything felt staged, and fake, and Steve didn’t _want_ anything from Billy anymore. He didn’t want to fight when it was the only thing that he was being used for, it was means to end and it didn’t _have_ to be Steve. He was just convenient.

“Seriously, Hargrove?” Steve said in a breaking sigh. “Don’t you have like, a puppy to kick or something?”

“Oh, and miss this opportunity to kick you?”

Steve’s breath came out harsher than it needed to. He increased his search to any nook and cranny on the outside of his car. He kept coming up empty, and empty, and – “God-fucking-damn it!”

He kicked the tire and it _hurt_.

He squeezed his eyes shut and rested his elbows on the top of the car, his head in his hands. He breathed in the cold air until he felt frozen inside and tried to find a center in the middle of an ocean.

Billy laughed and clicked his teeth together. Steve must have said something because his next words were, “You keep your spare key in the glove compartment? That makes no sense.”   

“You cannot talk about sense when you’ve chosen to have that stupid hair style,” Steve muttered without any bite in it. He should have run his car off the side of the road last night, at least he’d still be _in_ it.

He curled his hands into his hair and pulled, muttering to himself, “You have to go. Come on, Steve. _Think._ Where’d you put it. _”_

“Well, we know that thinking isn’t your strong suit.”

“Would you _fuck off_ already?” Steve asked harshly. “Don’t you – don’t you have some trailer park to be in charge of?”

Steve wasn’t expecting to suddenly be pushed forward into the side of his car. He wasn’t expecting it and couldn’t brace for the impact, feeling his breath knock from his lungs with an _oof_.

Steve was forced around, his back against the car and Billy in his face. There was sneer curling up his lips and angry fire in his eyes, and Billy shoved him back again. He crowded up on him almost like a challenge, like no time had passed between this morning and now except that now, Steve was _done_.

“Wanna try that shit again, pretty boy?” He sneered. “I would really _like_ for you to say it again.”

“Get off me.”

Billy didn’t, though Steve wasn’t expecting him to. He had that look in his eyes again, like he wanted to see Steve cry, wanted to break him down into something awful. Steve knew that he would.

It wasn’t even surprising when Billy closed the gap between them, pressing against Steve’s chest so close and so heavily that he could feel every breath that he was taking. He could feel the slow measured drag of oxygen into his lungs against Steve’s own pounding heat.

Steve felt like he was shattering.

Blue eyes flickered down Steve’s face, to his sunken eyes and his hollow cheeks. Billy laughed, “Jesus, you’re pathetic.”

 _I know_.

He was gone like a shadow, shoving off the car and leaving Steve cold, “It’s funny, Harrington, that you think that you’ve got such a high horse to stand on. It doesn’t take a genius to see that you’re disappointing Mommy and Daddy. No wonder they’re always gone.”

Billy laughed, tossing the ball in the air and catching it, “You know, I thought Tommy was bullshitting me. No one could be that fuckin’ dumb that they drove their parents away but here we are. Here _you_ are, King Steve.”

“Maybe,” Steve said even though he knew that it was. “But my parents didn’t move me across the country because of how fucked up I am.”

Steve doesn’t even know it that was true.

There were rumors about Billy, and Max had alluded that the move had been his fault, but no one actually knew anything. No one was dumb enough to ask and Billy was volatile enough to make every rumor seem true.

There was something to it because Billy’s face shifted from amused to menacing, to nothing. Then his face broke and he ran his tongue over his top lip, pointing his hand at Steve, “I always forget that you’re funny, Harrington.”

“Really. Really. Funny,” He said frighteningly slow, and then everything moved fast as his baseball went through Steve’s driver side window.

“What – what the fuc-“  Steve doesn’t even get the rest of the words out, all the fight in his soul just leaving him because he – his window was _broken_. It was shattered over the driver’s side seat, it – “What the hell, Hargrove!”

He shoved Billy and was shoved back hard, crowded up on with a forearm across his collarbone and his hand twisted at a painful angle. Billy’s eyes were manic and blue, and so close that Steve felt suffocated. He was laughing.

“What, pretty boy, what?” He breathed into his face. “Gonna have to tell your pretty mommy that your toys got broken. Gonna cry about it?”

“Just think,” Billy continued, grabbing his face so that they were eye and eye. He spoke in a low whisper, voice all caught up in this moment, “Would she even be surprised? What was it about you that made them come back?”

He pressed in closer, grabbing Steve’s wrist when he pulled his face away. He pressed into the rash and demanded, “ _Think_ , Harrington. What happened that made them realize that you were too fucked up to leave alone? How messed up do you have to be for that to happen?”

_What happened._

Demogorgons and spies, and the Upside Down spilled into Hawkins. Barb died, and Bob died, and Billy Hargrove happened. He was talking about himself, but Billy wasn’t _important_.

Billy wasn’t on the national news. He wasn’t dressed up in a suit and tie, and pretending to be his therapist. He didn’t try to put microchips in his ice cream, in his-

Steve cried out as the bones in his wrist grinded together, and Billy demanded, “ _Think_.”

_Ae you sure that’s all it is._

Steve wanted to laugh.

He wanted to tell Billy that none of this had anything to do with him so maybe Billy should get off his high horse and realize that he was _nothing_. He wanted to spit out that Billy wasn’t as special or as important as he thought he was. He wanted to tell him that he was just a means to an _end_.

Steve just wanted all of this to stop and Billy was the only person that was psychotic enough to end it for him. So, he told him.

He kicked out hard at Billy’s knee and then shoved him backwards, crowding up against him this time and pushing back with a frustrated cry. He told him as Billy laughed in his face, “You’re not special. This had nothing to do with you.”

Billy was just a shark and Steve was just drowning out at sea, but somehow reality became a nightmare. Purgatory became a nightmare, and no one ever hurt him in his nightmares.

No, they just tainted him.

They poisoned him with doubt, and hollowed him out, and stole his secrets while lying to his face. They called Stevie, and pretty boy, and Harrington. They petted his hair, and tried to drug him, and they put tracking devices inside of him. _Shit_.

They never hurt him.

Billy wasn’t going to hurt him.

Steve would have to do it himself.

He doesn’t think passed the desperation, the sick metallic realization that there was something _inside_ of him beneath the skin and over the bone, and he didn’t _want_ it there.

He felt uncomfortably numb. He felt like he wasn’t real to a degree, like a ghost that is not capable of thought. He doesn’t think, just reacts as he slammed his wrist down on the jagged remains of his car window, and _tears_.

He doesn’t think, or breathe, or stop until there were hands all over him. The hands were big and callused, and strong as they shoved him back against the side of the Camaro. There was a ringing in his ear and everything looked red, and Steve just _cried_. 

It was the kind of crying where he shook apart and didn’t make a sound. The breaking kind of sobbing that wouldn’t stop, that poured from nowhere because he was empty.

Billy Hargrove never looked surprised by anything, but his lightning blue eyes were wide, the blue nearly ran out by black. Steve felt a panic crawl over the numbness, felt it settle in and make itself at home. He couldn’t stop crying.

Oh god.

He looked down at his hands, seeping and pooling blood in his palm so thick that it looked nearly black in the middle. He looked at the glass glittering red in the broken skin of his wrist, at the cut muscles and the veins beneath it. _Oh god_.

_I don’t want this. I made a mistake._

“I – I –“ _Fix this, fix me._ “What…”

His dad used to say that he had no follow through.

His father would complain about how Steve started things and quit halfway through them when they weren’t all shiny and new, when the novelty wore off. It was the same way that they had quit parenting when the novelty wore off and they realized that their son wasn’t special enough but – he was right.

Steve never could follow through, even with dying.

He didn’t want to –

“What the fuck, Harrington?” Billy hissed, his hands clamping over Steve’s wrists, and it _burnt_ but it didn’t hurt nearly as much as the _something_ that shook in Billy’s voice did. “What the actual fuck were you thinking?”

 _Oh_. There was a lot of blood. Too much.

“Ban – band-aids,” Steve stuttered, losing whatever determination and will that he had inside of him as his stomach flipped violently. He didn’t feel numb, or determined, or strong anymore. “In the glove compartment, there’s-“

“You’re going to need more than a couple of fucking band-aids, Harrington.”

“I – _shit_ ,” Steve hissed when Billy adjusted his grip on his wrist, the pain taking the breath from him lungs and narrowed his vision down to a point before it came back blurry and bright. “Shit, that’s a lot – there’s a lot of blood. I –“

“Don’t fucking pass out on me, Harrington,” Billy seethed. “I swear to fuck that I will kick you to death, asshole.”

Steve nodded but he was paling at a considerable rate, a sheen of sweat breaking out on his forehead despite how cold he felt. Billy tugged on one of Steve’s arms, pulling on the blood sleeve and pushing its bloody wrist against the laxed hand of his other arm, “Fuck, Harrington, put pressure on it while I get my fucking keys. Do some work.”

He waited expectantly and impatiently as Steve forced his hand to hold onto the blood-slick wrist, ignoring the anxiety in Steve’s face at the difficult in making his body complete a simple function. Billy wiped the blood onto his jeans before he found his keys, fumbling to unlock the passenger door.

Steve wanted to tell him that he was going to stain his clothes, but it felt like the opportunity passed before he could get his mouth open. Billy tossed the keys into the driver’s seat before turning back to him, “Get in.”

“Where are we going?”

Billy pulled his up onto his feet, holding his waist when he wobbled violently before stressing through his teeth, “The hospital, dumbass.”

Steve straightened so quickly that he clipped his shoulder on the car roof, nearly falling out of it. Billy grabbed him when he pulled away and shoved him back down into the seat, “What the fuck, Harrington?”

“’m not – _not_ going to – take me to Hopper, to-“ His voice sounded slurred with something more than desperation but Steve didn’t care. “ _Fuck_ , anyone but not the hospital. I – it’s fine, I’m fine. I made a mistake, I-“

Billy slammed the door shut, walking around the car to the other side and Steve scrambled. He fumbled for the keys, trying to make his hands work when the door was pulled open on the other side, “The fuck, Harrington, are you trying to-“

Billy shoved him back into the passenger seat and took the keys easily from Steve’s bloody hands. He grabbed something from the back and shoved it at Steve, seething through his teeth, “You’re bleeding all over my car, jackass. Sit back and press that over your wrist being you fucking bleed out.” 

“That’s –“ Steve blinked down at the soft purple fabric that was shoved into his lap. “Is this Max’s?”

“I don’t care.”

Billy pulled out of the parking lot after nearly beating the directions to the hospital out of Steve, and only really getting a begrudged response that it was a mile passed the police station.

Steve just stopped fucking talking halfway to the hospital, stopped asking him to turn around, stopped giving him directions to places that he wouldn’t go. His voice just slurred into nothing and then he just – “Shit.”

Steve’s blue shirt was stained nearly black and wet with blood. Max’s forgotten pullover was soaked through, and Steve’s eyes were bruised, and sunken, and _glass_. “Shit. Fuck – Harrington!”

When Billy got no response, he grabbed one of the slacked wrists and squeezed hard until he got a hiss of pain. Steve’s eyes sharpened into life, lighting up before squeezing shut with pain, “Ow! St-stop, stop.”

Billy pressed down hard with his thumb on a deep cut and said firmly, “Rule one, don’t bleed out in my fucking car. You’re cleaning the interior, I swear to fucking god.”

Steve’s head bobbed forward, “Gots quarters for ca’wash.”

“Good, you’re listening,” He snapped. “Rule two, don’t touch the radio.”

Steve’s couldn’t feel his fingers, couldn’t feel his feet, even moving his mouth felt numb, “Not gonna.”

“Rule three,” Billy counted off, flicking his cigarette out the window. “Is that pressure that I see you applying? No? Do it.”

Steve tried to comply. He tried really hard to make his hands to what was asked of him, but they weren’t working, “Tired.”

“No shit,” Billy said around a new cigarette. “Maybe don’t do dumb shit like cut your wrists, like a fucking moron.”

“’m sorry, ‘m ruinin’ your car.”

“I – just stay awake, Harrington. We’re almost there.”

“Don’t wanna – die.”

“I know.”

“Was an accident,” Steve slurred when hospital appeared in the distance. “Don’t – don’t call m’ parents. They’ll tell, p’ease.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my opinion, I don' really view Steve's actions as a suicide attempt so much as taking drastic measures to take something out of him that he truly believes is there. 
> 
> More to come.


	19. Chapter 19

“Do you think that he was like, _possessed_?”

The words rolled into his subconscious like the low rumble of a distant thunderstorm and heavily fogged mornings, landing soft without a sound. _There_ but easily forgotten. _There_ but too gentle to touch. _There_ but everywhere, but nowhere, but pointless.

The words were inquisitive. They prodded and explored in a clouded thick voice, meaninglessly reaching towards him but never _embracing_ him. All too distant even in his ears, the words died where they landed.

The words echoed with a soft reverberation, rippling over smoke and water with a need for rationalization. They trembled into Steve’s senses like breathing inside of a dream, but it was _pointless_.

He could not hold onto them, grasping wisps of smoke and air just to exhale them through his nose. He lost the _need_ for rationalization. He lost everything.

He couldn’t even remember what it was that had driven him from a sleeping comfort, what it was that he needed to justify anyways. He felt dazed, and not quite awake like he was reaching out and holding onto nothing.

There was no perch to find grip in consciousness, he didn’t even know if he wanted one. He knew nothing.

There _was_ nothing, only him.

He was singular in a world of dust and smoke, and _him_. The voices and the words filtered through and didn’t last, meaning nothing to him. They didn’t matter, none of it mattered if the significance slipped his grasp and through his fingers, if he clawed after the words and found nothing, if he blinked open his eyes and everything still _hurt_.

He watched as the words disappeared into a deeper unknown and he didn’t care. He didn’t want their meaning, it made him tired.

He felt unbearably _light,_ like feathers on the wind and the hollow singing of bird bones. He felt flimsy and wispy, and empty with a finality of the knowledge that he would never be refilled. He felt effortlessly void, like water in a strainer. He felt _pointless_.

He was an intangible to even the ether that he was floating. He felt vague in the universe like he wasn’t truly there, or the words weren’t real, or neither of them existed in this world or the next.

He felt like he would float away.

He felt like a ghost.

Exhaustion was the first to settle into his bones, weighing him down from the ether and burying deep into his subconscious like tunnels wrapping around his legs. Exhaustion made itself at home in the hollow of his organs with the comforting bulk of _wool_. It wrapped him in warmth and familiarity, in the security that he wouldn’t hurt anymore.

He wanted to stay there, he wanted _mummified_ in the comfort forever, but he knew that he could not stay. He allowed the words to pull him forward, following the hum of them in the distance.

He could not shed the weight and the warmth that was trapping him, could not shed what was _inside_ of him but he went towards the words. He knew that he was supposed to, and he was always so good at doing what he was supposed to do.

It was a different voice that spoke next, shorter words that were less inquisitive, less calm over anxiety, less _there_. The edge of the voice was a flimsy youth, balancing on the edge of childhood and adulthood, and desperately trying not to fall either way. It sounded tired, “Shut up.”

_Please._

“Maybe that is the reason that he fell apart so fast,” The inquisitive voice tried to reason, to make sense of _something_ in a murmured soft reassurance and a scientist-like curiosity. It was gentle like a hug and a drizzling rain, and it made Steve ache for something that he couldn’t grasp.

He dragged himself after the voice and the words, crawling over exhaustion and persisting through fatigue. He wanted to give up, wanted to live in the dark around him but he _followed_ , “He was fine a week ago.”

“I _said_ shut up. I swear to god, I-“

“You’ll what? _You_ shut up!” A different voice snapped at the tired one, harsh and short-fused, and _loud_. “Telling him to shut up isn’t going to make all of this go away, it’s not going to fix this.”

Steve breathed, and he _crawled_ forward because something was wrong, something was broken. All those voices were too much, too high-strung, and sad, and worried. He couldn’t move his _hands_.

There was a soft tingling numb that had taken possession of his fingers and toes, buzzing up his arms and along his neck, and cheek, and into the part of his brain that knew that he had been sleeping. There was something that was making him sleep, he fought against it.

He latched onto the voices with a desperate need to _see_ them, to the short burst of arguing that fell into a deafening silence. He forced himself towards it like walking beneath water.

He persisted, and he drown, and he kept moving forward.

“He wasn’t _fine_ , dipshit!” The tired voice exclaimed in a defensive harsh whisper, too close to Steve not to be right next to him. “He was _faking_ it, moron! I told _all_ of you that there was something wrong and you said that I was just being stupid! Well, who looks stupid now, huh? Wanna keep saying that there wasn’t anything wrong?”

“If something was wrong than he should have told someone about it instead of hiding it?”

“You mean like how _Will_ hid that he was having visions of the Upside freaking Down for like, months? Like how Will didn’t tell us that, Mike?”

The reasonable voice – _Lucas_ , Steve’s mind supplied uselessly – cut back in, “That is why I _asked_. Do you think that he could be possessed?”

“ _NO.”_ Both voices shot back with vicious surety and Steve could _breathe_ at that, Will was _fine_. Will was going to be fine for the rest of his life because the gate was closed and the Upside Down was far away. Nothing else mattered except that.

He could relaxed, but the tired voice spoke again, sighing, “Steve’s just – he’s different, guys.”

“He’s acting like a crazy person.”

“He’s not crazy!” The voice cried out, high and indignant, and overrun with that tired exhaustion that came from rehashing a conversation for the hundredth time. “He’s – do you really think that you’d be okay after everything if you didn’t have us? Didn’t have friends?”

Steve realized slowly and belatedly that the tired voice belonged to Dustin. The comprehension of which face went with that weary voice felt _wrong._ Dustin was never tired.

The world had almost ended, and Dustin had never wavered once in his enthusiasm and energy, and boundless _force_ of scientific intrigue. He had kept everything light and manageable, and kept Steve focused through a concussion with his spirit, and talking, and endless amounts of _certainty_.

Dustin sounded tired, defensive and stressed out, and too mature for his age. Steve could only take a little comfort in the cadence of his voice, in the rise and fall of youthful confidence because Dustin was _still_ talking. He was just tired now.

Steve was so fucking exhausted that he couldn’t even blame Dustin for feeling tired. He was okay though and that was all that mattered.

Steve didn’t feel okay.

Everything inside of him rocked back and forth with the sickly motion of being knocked around the inside of a bumpy car. It swung within his stomach with a burning nausea, threatening to spill out of him. He felt sick.

He stumbled in the direction of the voices and fell into the blurry memory of his feet on the Camaro’s dashboard and Max behind the wheel. He felt an invisible ache of a swollen face and bruised ribs, and the watery way that his brain swishing around inside of his head. He thought that he was too tired to do all of this again.

He was too tired for the end of the world, too tired to make sure that everybody was safe, and alive, and protected. He thought about how _bad_ he really was at keeping people safe.

He thought about Barb, and he breathe through the nausea. He tried to bring his hand to his face, but he _couldn’t_.   

“Do you think that you’d be okay?” Dustin pressed, his voice losing its tired edge as it dropped into something almost scarily relentless. “Do you think that you’d be fine if you didn’t have your parents to go to every time you had a nightmare? Or if you didn’t have Max there, or Erica? Steve doesn’t have any of that normal shit.”

“There was no one for him to talk to,” He continued softer. “There was no one to take his mind off things. Nance was gone and we – we haven’t been good friends.”  

“We’re not his friends,” Mike said, cutting into the conversation with a defensive sneer.

“Well, I _am_.”

“Then you’ve been a bad friend, not us.”

“Then I _have_ ,” Dustin’s voice took on a new edge, something sharper than the point of a Demogorgon’s teeth and just as vicious. “If you don’t give a shit about Steve than what are you doing here, Mike. No one asked you to come.”

“…I didn’t say that I didn’t care,” Mike justified. “I’m just saying that it’s not our fault that he tried to kill himself.”

“He didn’t try-!” Dustin voice came out high and then plunged into nothing, dying in a breath. The air felt thick as Steve breathed in sharply.

He felt just beneath the surface of _something_ , that sickness inside of him rolling violently. It felt like the rug had been pulled out from under him, like he was _knocked_ to the ground and kicked in the ribs with the suddenness of the memory. _Shit_.

Everything sunk into him with the sharpness and clarity as a hundred Demogorgon teeth, like broken glass – the parking lot and Billy Hargrove, and too much blood.

He hadn’t been trying to –

“We don’t know what happened,” Dustin’s voice was a soft whisper. “We don’t know what Steve was trying to do. It could – there could be another explanation.”

Steve couldn’t move his arms.

It was the first conscious thought that felt like it was his own. It was the first realization that connected his floating mind to a tired body, and it _hurt_.

His arms felt weighted and heavy, connecting the cold numb of his fingertips up his hands to his wrist, his elbow, his shoulder. They felt impossible to move.

He had to concentrate hard to feel anything, and then it was just a barely there dull throbbing within his arms. It was pulsing, burning within him like ignited gasoline deep into his bones and an inferno burning out in his veins.

He couldn’t move his arms. _Why not? Why wouldn’t – what was –_

“Whhhh….” His voice trailed off and cracked into a dry desert, a drought taking residence in his mouth. He ran a dry tongue over his teeth without relief, and tried again, “Wh’t happened? M’ arms. I-“

“Shhh, Steve, buddy,” Dustin’s voice was soothing, soft and close by. It was something to hold onto as a hand filled his, squeezing the numbness from his fingertips, “Hey, buddy. Shh, it’s okay. You’re okay.”

Dustin’s words landed like _rain_ , miserable and running off the limbs that he couldn’t feel. He didn’t know if they were even _there_. He – Dustin squeezed his hand tighter, digging his fingernails into the flesh until Steve’s eyes snapped open, “Shh, Steve, we’re not allowed to be here. You got to calm down before you set something off.”

“Can’t move,” His own words sounded slurred and slow to him, soft and broken, and dry. They didn’t sound like they were his words to begin with, everything felt surreal. “M’ mm’ arms, I-“

“Here,” Dustin said, a plastic cup pressed against his bottom lip as the bed tilted up and the world tilted down. Steve felt like throwing up as he lapped up the water, “Drink slowly, okay? They restrained you.”

“What?”

“I think that they’ll take them off now that you’re awake,” He said in a hurried tone, pulling the cup away after Steve sipped from it. “You got to calm down. Please, stop freaking out.”

“We’re not allowed back here,” Lucas added, standing at the foot of the bed. “We snuck in.”

Steve’s eyes felt heavy and sticky, like he’d Rip Van Winkled away a century in the span of a few hours. He felt _exhausted_ , blinded by the harsh lighting and the spin of the world around him. He felt sick and nauseous as everything stuttered into focus in front of him, all too loud and bright, and _there_.

“You snuck…” Steve trailed off, blinking slowly as his eyes adjusted to the light. He categorized everything as they came to him, taking in the dusty drop ceilings, the out of season Valentine’s Day decorations hanging from them. He took in the pale blue walls and the ugly flowered prints, took in the machine next to him that was beeping continuously.

He categorized Dustin’s worried face and his anxiety-bitten bottom lip, in the excitement scratched onto Lucas’ face, and Mike’s impatient watching. He let his eyes slip down with the weight of a sedative to the tube in his arm, the thin sheets and collarless gown, and his arms pale and hidden beneath patted restraints.

He blinked. _Oh._

He was in a – a lab. Okay.

His eyes slipped shut. _Oh god._

Oh god, oh – “Where – where are we?”

“Steve, you’re in the hospital,” Lucas answered. “Don’t you remember being brought in?”

 _No_. He didn’t remember going to the hospital because he tried – because of _that_. He remembered – the Camaro, and Billy’s rules, and the weepy sound of Tainted Love on the radio. He remembered Billy, and blue eyes that were too wide, and the shiver of fear.

He remembered _red_ , but not getting to the hospital. It wouldn’t be the first time that he woke up somewhere different though, wouldn’t be the first time that he had no memory getting there. “Oh.”

Steve dragged his eyes up before they had the chance to slip closed again against his will, focusing on something in the middle distance before a flash of red caught his eyes.

There was a scrap on Lucas’ elbow, dark red scabbed across the skin where the band-aid had come unstuck on one side and was hanging freely.

Steve categorized it. He was in a hospital, the walls were blue, and Lucas was digging bitten fingernails absently at the scab until it was bleeding. He was tired, and Will was fine, and Lucas was _bleeding_.

Steve tried to lift his hand to gesture to it, “What happened – what happened to-“

“Max is teaching Lucas how to do tricks on her skateboard and it is going as bad as predicted,” Dustin said dismissively, swiping Lucas’ hand away from his scratching. “You’re the one that we should all be worried about, you’re in the fucking hospital, Steve! What happened out there?”

“Oh.” Steve blinked again.

“Did you-“

“Did you try to commit suicide?” Mike asked bluntly. “Did you try to kill yourself in the school parking lot?”

Steve’s brows furrowed together, “What?”

That wasn’t – he wasn’t doing _that_. Jesus, they really believed that he was trying to kill himself?

Sure, he’d thought about it. He thought about it a lot more than he used to, but he wouldn’t – Steve had _no_ follow through, he would be able to do that. Didn’t they understand?

There were spies in Hawkins and they put a tracker inside of him, inside of his _wrist_. There were microphones in his car, and in his VCR, and inside of _him_. He had to get it _out_ to protect himself, to protect them, and Will, and El.

They understood that, right? They _had_ to.

There was a _bug_ in his skin and he – “What? I didn’t –“

“Exactly!” Dustin stated, glaring at Mike. “Everybody thought that Will _drowned_ at the quarry and that wasn’t true even though that was exactly what it looked like. There was a body and everything, the _police_ said that it was true, so everybody believed it, and they were wrong. Not everything is what it seems.”

“Well, this _seems_ to be pretty straight forward,” Mike shot back, lifting up Steve’s hand as far as the restraints would allow as if he was saying _exhibit A_ , Steve screwed up.

The medical band stood out stark against white bandages and paler skin as Mike dropped his hand, “It _seems_ like he tried to kill himself in the school parking lot.”

“That’s not-“

“ _And_ , Dustin, it _still_ looks exactly like that now!” Mike snapped. “Unless – what? Are you going to tell me that this isn’t the real Steve, right? It’s a clone now, or is someone controlling his mind that’s making him literally cut his own wrist? You’re going to say that?”

“You don’t know anything, Mike! Shut up!”

“Shhh, both of you, shut up!” Lucas shushed, going to stand by the door. He spoke softer over there as he peeked outside, “Someone is going to hear us in here. Let Steve _tell_ you what happened before you start fighting.”

“Yeah! Yeah, Steve can explain now that he’s awake,” Dustin nodded insistently. “So – so, Steve, what happened out there, man? We got out to the parking lot after school and everybody was saying that – there was just… there was blood everywhere, and your window was smashed in, and _Hopper_ was there. I heard a nurse say that _Billy_ brought you in.”

Steve shook his head, _that_ wasn’t what happened. It didn’t – Steve didn’t. He wanted to laugh, or cry, or _feel_ something other than bone-deep exhaustion and numb.

Jesus, people thought that he tried to kill himself? That would be all over the school tomorrow, and – “I don’t wanna talk ‘bout it.”

“I don’t think that you get a choice in that,” Lucas said flatly, worriedly peeking back out the door. He eased it shut again with a wince, “Uh, Steve? Does your dad wear glasses and like, a lot of hair gel?”

Steve just blinked, and Lucas swore, “Guys, I think that we’re about to be caught.”

“ _Shit_.”

Steve heard words that had haunted him since the first night in the Byers living room, whispering into his ear with the scent of lighter fluid and gun powder. It gripped him threatening, and violent, and as strong, and stoic, and harsh as Nancy had been that night, _‘It’s going to come back, you need to leave.’_

Multicolored Christmas lights flash in his vision as the kids made a hopeless attempt to hide themselves in a room that held nothing. Steve breathed in crisp ventilated hospital air as his mind went dark and tunneled to monsters and gasoline, and his heart pounded like clawed feet against a ground that was alive. His own voice echoed in his mind, ‘ _Guys, we gotta go. We gotta go now.’_

The kids moved around the room like trapped animals, talking over each other as they accused the other of getting them caught, and then came up with excuses, and stories, and lies. Steve blinked at the busied movements and the noise, and then tried to sit up.

He pitched himself forward with all the energy and strength that he had inside of him, getting him nowhere. The whole world swayed back and forth within his movement, rocking back into place slowly as he pressed his toes into the mattress and tried to push up.

They needed to _go_.

_It’s going to come back. Guys, we gotta go._

The machine whirled to life beside him, betraying his panic with an anxiety percussion symphony that was fucking _loud_. The shrill hum accompanied the blood in his ears and the ringing in his head, and the drumming of his fast beating heart.

There were fingers pressed gently against his elbow, traveling up his arm to grab his shoulder. The rough pads of rounded fingertips dug through the cloth into his skin, pushing him back into the bed, “ _Steve_.”

Steve just sagged into it. He felt the fight fade from him as the noise faded to the back burner, felt trapped in a cacophony of meaningless shushing and humming, and voices telling him, “Steve, you need to stay where you are or you’re going to hurt yourself.”

“He already hurt himself.”

“ _Shut up_ , Mike. Jesus.”

Steve wasn’t in the party anymore because he was _dangerous._ It was dangerous to be around him because there were spies that were after him. He’d been kicked out for other reasons, but it was for the best, it was for the best that they didn’t want him to leave with them even though they _needed_ to leave.

He didn’t try to kill himself but they all thought that he had. They didn’t want him to protect them anymore because he couldn’t protect himself _from_ himself. Jesus.

Dustin’s voice was ever-sweet and gentle. It felt too much like someone actually cared, “We don’t want you to hurt anymore, you have to stop moving.”

“We need to _go_.”

“There’s nowhere to go, Mike,” Dustin told him, not taking his hand off Steve’s shoulder. “There are some things that are more important than not getting in trouble and my friends are one of them. Steve is my friend.”

Steve _wasn’t_ his friend, he didn’t mean that. He wasn’t in the party anymore. Steve wasn’t hardly a _person_ anymore, he wasn’t capable of being someone’s friend.

“I didn’t –“ Steve tried in a thick voice. “I wasn’t trying –“

“I _know_ , Steve,” Dustin told him with eyes so wide and sincere, and understanding. “I get it now, I’m sorry.”

Steve wanted to ask what he was sorry for. He wanted to say that they all had it wrong, that he wasn’t trying to kill himself. He just wanted the spies to go away, for Billy to go away, for all of this to _stop_.

“I didn’t – where…” Steve trailed off suddenly, blinking in quick succession before his brows knitted together. Something was missing, _someone_ was missing and that didn’t make sense because these kids traveled in packs. “Where’s Will?”

He _had_ to be there. They were always together.

Steve started to move again. He dug his heels into the bed and pushed upwards, pulling against the restraints without success. Dustin dug his fingernails into his shoulder, “Steve! You need to stop-“

“Where is Will?” He demanded, feet slipping and slumping back into the bed. He didn’t give up, pulling up on the restraints until he could _feel_ it burn into his skin. “Why isn’t he-“

 _“Steve_ , your stitches!”

Steve’s fight bled from him and his arms dropped back to the mattress, fingers uncurling. He felt so acutely aware of black stitching in his flesh, of the pull of wiring in his skin, of the cut veins beneath it, of the _slice_ of a broken glass window.

He breathed out, “Did they get it out?”

“What?” Dustin’s eyebrows shot to the ceiling, nearly disappearing under his curls. He gave Mike and Lucas a look, “Get what out?”

“The – the chip, did they get it out?” Steve asked desperately, his mouth nearly watering because he _needed_ to know the answer so much. He breathed out harshly, feeling a slick oily metallic taste as the seconds ticked on, “God, it’s – it’s still in me. It’s there. Oh my god.”

“Steve, what are you _talking_ about?”

“The _spies_.”

“Spies?” Mike repeated disbelieving, “What are you-“

“Stevie?”

The boys jumped back a foot from the bed when the door was opened, distancing themselves from Steve and making way for his mother to rush across the small space. Steve knew in that moment, in the way that their eyes met from either side of his father’s looming presence, that he’d lost.

They didn’t believe him about the spies.

They didn’t believe him, so he was – he was _wrong_? Or crazy, or dumb. The spies didn’t exist, or they did and – the boys didn’t know. _He_ didn’t know, and he couldn’t make his mother to leave to ask them.

There were tears in his mother’s eyes and her hands were soft as they took Steve’s face into them, turning his head to her and pressing kisses to his cheek and forehead. She petted back his hair, whispering in a watery voice, “My baby. Oh, Stevie, what on earth happened to my baby?”

“Where is Will?”

“Who?” Her watery voice froze into something that was confused and high-alert. Her eyes went wide as she looked around the room, at each of the boys like she’d never seen them before, “Who is Will?”

Steve felt _indignant._

She could betray him, sale him out to the government but they couldn’t – they couldn’t fucking touch Will. He’d been through too much already.

“Will is with his mom, Steve,” Dustin answered, pointedly ignoring Mrs. Harrington as he spoke. He kept his eyes on Steve’s, “Jonathan picked him up after school because he had an appointment and Max skateboarded home. She’s safe and so is he, he’s with his mom.”

“Oh.”

 _Oh,_ Steve breathed out.

“Boys, it is rather later,” Mr. Harrington drawled out, looking down at his watch and then to them expectantly. The sun was already starting to slip out of the sky outside of the window, casting an orangey glow into the room as the clock ticked to the next minute.

School had been out for _hours_ and his parents were just getting here.

Somehow, that hurt.

It wasn’t surprising, but it hurt.

“I do think that it is time for Steve to rest without the distraction,” He continued, patiently like he was speaking in a business exchange. “And it is time for you all to go home.”

“H-hey,” Steve piped up when the kids started to begrudgingly say their goodbyes. He stopped Dustin when he reached to hug him, catching his sleeve with his fingers, “How are you getting home? My dad, he can take you home, yeah? Dad, please? It’s late.”

“A boy went missing, Jay,” His mother said in a whisper that echoed around the silence in the room like the rest of them wouldn’t be able to hear her. It was like they thought that they didn’t already _know_ that a kid went missing last year, or that Barb died, or that someone shot Benny in the burger shop.

She whispered it like it wasn’t _their_ Will that had went missing. _Jesus_ Christ, she had to know that it was their Will. He told her that.

She was playing dumb, playing clueless like she didn’t know what lead to this very moment. _God_ , he hated her fucking guts.

She was going to act like this moment was inevitable, like she wasn’t working with spies to put a tracker inside of him. She was just upset that he tried to foil the plan and was going to – to act like this was a stupid suicide attempt, which it _wasn’t_.

Steve tried to move his head back, but it didn’t stop her from running her fingers into his hair, telling his father, “It wouldn’t be too much trouble to take them.”

 There was a nonverbal debate that felt more at home across the kitchen table than here but eventually, his father sighed. Steve could hear the rustle of his suit jacket as he crossed his arms, “No, it wouldn’t be too much trouble, so I will inform the Chief of Police that he should do so. I saw him down the hall.”

Mike and Steve spoke at the same time, “Hopper is here?”

His father’s eyes drifted from Mike to Steve, looking unimpressed with this whole situation but he always looked unimpressed with Steve. His gaze didn’t waver when he answered, “He was speaking to the boy that drove you here.”

“Billy is here?” Dustin asked, lapping over Mike’s muttered _‘still’_ and the cold feeling that knotted in Steve’s gut. _Jesus_.

“ _Billy_?” His mother asked, her voice dropping cold like she was connecting pieces that hadn’t previously been connected. “Billy Hargrove, that was the boy from the office today, wasn’t it, Steve? He said that he was your friend.”

“Well,” His father said in a brisk tone, a disappointed tone, “We are certainly lucky that _someone_ there was thinking rationally. God know, it was not your son, Angela.”

“James, that’s not-“

“Billy is _not_ Steve’s friend,” Dustin scoffed hard, sounding outraged and offended that his parents didn’t know something so obvious. Steve shot him a wide-eyed look and Dustin withered beneath it slightly, saying bitterly, “I mean, that – we’ll go find Hopper. We’ll promise to visit tomorrow.”

“During visiting hours, surely.”

“You got it, Mr. Harrington.”

Dustin gave Steve a hug again, whispering to him that if he needed anything than to call. Steve nodded even though he had no intention of telling anybody anything ever again.

It was nice of them to make promises that they’d come see him tomorrow, but Steve had no intention of still being here. He didn’t plan to stay the night even. He was leaving.

He was _done_. He couldn’t stay so he was _going_.

Nothing about his plan had changed. There was nothing about this that made anything bearable, if anything, everything was so much _worse_ now. God, he didn’t even want to think about it.

“Stevie, baby,” His mother sighed when the door swung shut on the three of them, and Steve felt distinctly like leaving now. He felt too tired to still be angry, felt too drained to feel betrayed, or upset, or _alive_. “I was so worried, Steve. When we got the message that you were in the hospital, I – well, baby, that is a mother’s worse fear.”

 _Message_ , they didn’t get a call. They got a message.

Steve couldn’t think of a single place that his parents went were they couldn’t receive a call. He could remember numerous times that they’ve declined to take calls though.

“When we got here,” His mother was saying, stopping and clearing her throat of its swell of emotion. He didn’t know if he even believed her, didn’t know why it hurt so much that he didn’t know if this was real. She sighed, “They said that you – honey, what did you _do_?”

“Where were you?” Steve asked. “Why weren’t you here?”

He needed to know because he had lunch at _noon_ and it was nearly six o’clock now, and they – they weren’t _here_. If Hopper was involved than he would have called immediately, would have left a fucking _message_ that they didn’t listen to until…

He couldn’t sink any lower than how he felt watching him mother’s eyes seek out his father’s over his head. He felt _awful_.

“We came as soon as we got the message, baby,” She told him, rubbing his arm. She looked down to the restraints, “Let’s talk to someone about getting these off you.”

“Don’t – don’t change the subject, you weren’t _here_.”

“Steve, we came the moment that we knew where you were,” She said, squeezing his arm at the elbow. “Your father’s secretary didn’t have the number to our restaurant, and-“

“You were _eating_ ,” He laughed harshly, noticing for the first time what his mother was actually wearing. She’d changed since being at the school, her hair was done up and her make up perfect, diamond rings lining her fingers.

His conversation with Billy in the parking lot happened at most _fifteen_ minutes after she left which meant that – that she was probably still home getting ready when Hopper called. She ignored the call, ignored him.

His laugh turned nasty, “Who is the new client, Dad? Who was more important.”

“Steven, don’t raise your voice,” He said in a low dangerous voice that Steve rarely heard because he rarely _saw_ his father anyways. “Do you know what this looks like?”

“James, that is not what matters,” His mother said harsh. “Steve, we’re just grateful that you’re okay. The doctor said that you lost a lot of blood.”

“ _Who_ is the client?” He demanded, voice pitched too high. “I – I was _dying_ and you were having champagne. What do I have to do to make you _care_?”

“Is that what this is? A call for help, Steven?” His father asked.

“No, I-“

“Surely, now is the time to grow up. These temper tantrums are beneath you, Steve. And to do this – _this_ to yourself because you are angry about, what?”

 _You would know if you ever fucking listened,_ He thought dangerously. _Fucking traitor. Fucking spy. I hate you_.

“I hate you so much,” He said through his teeth, voice pitched low. “I didn’t try to kill myself because I’m _mad_ at you. I don’t _care_ enough about you to do something like that.”

“Okay,” His mother said complacently, petting his hair now like he fucking hated and he couldn’t even move his hands to push her off. “Okay, Stevie, okay. Why did you make this attempt on your life than? We’re not angry, we just want to know so we can get the right treatment.”

 _Treatment_ , he rolled that word on his tongue and felt sick. He thought of El, and test tubes, and the word _lobotomize_.

He worked his jaw open from a mechanical clench, “I didn’t fucking try to kill myself.”

“ _Stevie_ ,” His mother said with a sigh, dropping her hand from his hair to the restraint on his wrist. He felt _tired_. “So much has happened in the last year. Your friend’s death and that boy’s disappearance, we should have seen how much pain you were in.”

“I _didn’t_ try to kill myself,” He repeated. “You don’t have to – stop justifying why you didn’t see this happening. This isn’t a – I’m not crying for help.”

“You don’t have to give up, baby, life gets so much better,” She told him, not listening to him. “We’ll talk to Dr. Winston, or we’ll get you a new therapist. There are medications-“

“ _No_ ,” He snapped. “I didn’t try to kill myself, you’re _not_ listening. I wasn’t – I wasn’t, that wasn’t what I was doing. I just wanted it to – to stop.”

He wanted the spies to go away, to understand that he wasn’t going to say anything, that he was _good_. He wanted Billy to _end_ him, not do it himself. He just – he wanted everything to fade to white and stop hurting, and this was too much.

Jesus, he wanted to say. He wanted to ask why they thought that _if_ he was going to attempt suicide why would he do it in the school’s fucking parking lot and not in their almost always empty house?

He let that question die on his lips because they didn’t believe him. He could see it in their eyes, he could see the pity and the disappointment, and the ways that they thought that he was lying. This was pointless.

There was a burning behind his eyes that pulse with the same intensity as the beating in his heart. He felt horrible and sick, thinking how much easier it would be if he had bled out in Billy’s car, or if Billy drove a little slower, or if he had been alone.

He denied how relieved the thought of dying felt, denied the flicker of disappointment in his chest at being alive now. He sighed.

His father’s hand was heavy on his shoulder and his voice soft, “Let your mother take care of you, Steven. Let us handle this.”

And Steve, he did what he always did.

He gave in and gave up, and conceded.

“Okay.”  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo, 
> 
> My sister is a teacher and eight months pregnant and the last two week have been a whirlwind of helping her move into her new classroom and a baby shower so, blame her for the lack of a chapter last week.
> 
> This chapter is half of what I was planning it to be but I've not had a lot of time to write so I got it to a good cutting off point. More to come.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Be prepared for some inaccurate medical protocol. I know nothing about how hospitals treat suicidal patients so I like to think that Hawkins General is just really relaxed about it.

“ _God.”_

Steve didn’t know if that soft watery voice was real or just echoing like the repeat of a loud speaker inside of his head. So many things were repeating in his head, looping around his ears into a simple kind of spiraled madness. Mocking him, taunting him, being _mean_ without reason.

He could have sighed if he wanted to.

There was so _much_ happening. There was nothing happening.

Life just kind of – _stopped_.

His parents told him that they would handle everything. They spoke to him like a stupid child about the hole that he dug, that he couldn’t get out of, that he _needed_ their help. They said that they would take care of him, that everything was going to work out. Everything would be okay.

He wondered how old he’d have to be to actually believe that.

It was a gnawed hollowness that ate at him, when he had said _okay_. He had licked his lips and swallowed his pride, and said _I made a mistake_. He had bowed his head and whispered lies, _I need your help_.

He wanted to die.

Minutes had ticked into hours, into night time, and his parents had left for home and comfortable beds – _we can’t sleep here, you understand that, Stevie, yes?_

Steve was ancient in his bones. He was _tired_ but not for sleep, and not for food, and not for anything but a release that was white and pure, and final. He accepted the facts for what they looked like and for what they were.

It was not that he wanted to _die,_ exactly.

It was _exhausting_ to think of how physical that would be, how much work. He didn’t want to die, he just wanted everything to end. He wanted to _rest_. He wanted to be embraced in white light and for everything to stop hurting.

He wanted his grandmother. He wanted Barb. He wanted to speed through the backroads with his eyes closed and drive over the side of the quarry, wanted weightlessness, wanted no pain. He wanted _finality._

He wasn’t even asleep, not really.  

He was somewhere floating in the in between, somewhere not awake but not dreaming that was full of black water and killer creatures, and nothing that was ever going to touch him again. His head tilted up to an aching angle and his glassy eyes sunken and hooded, nearly shut. He stared through his eyelashes unseeing at the clock on the wall.

It _ticked_. Seconds, minutes, hours, _days_.

“You’re an idiot, Steve Harrington.”

The door closed as silently as it opened, the soft scratch of fake wood against fake wood echoed into the loud dissonance of noise in his head. He listened but he didn’t react to the words, he felt like a _loser_.

There was nothing left for him to lose and yet, he was still _losing_.

The morning had drained what life still remained in his bones and then pumped it back into his veins. He felt recycled, and exhausted, and just _tired_ to his core. He felt like dying but he didn’t feel like killing himself.

He supposed that would be progress if he _had_ tried to kill himself.

No one had talked to him the night before even though he was _here_ , and lucid, and eighteen years old. The nurses and the doctors spoke to his parents in the hallway, and his parents never told him anything, so morning arrived tepid with too many questions, with terrible answers.

He learned that suicidal patients were required by law to be detained for seventy-two hours after being committed to the hospital, that he could not leave despite the fact that he wasn’t suicidal and that he didn’t attempt suicide in the first fucking place.

It was an _accident_ , he had started to say that morning. He’d had an _accident_ and all he wanted to do was go home.

He had known that Claudia Henderson was a nurse, that she worked long shifts that had her out of the house before eight and not back until after five o’clock. Steve kind of expected that she’d make her way up to see him because he was sure that _everybody_ knew by now, and if they didn’t than Dustin would’ve told her at least.

He also knew that he didn’t really mind if she saw him, that she had always been so caring and nice to him. Steve even kind of looked forward to the hug that she would give him until he saw her.

He hadn’t known which department that she worked in, but he learned when the night shift staff rolled into the day shift staff that she was one of the four day nurses of the Behavioral Health unit. He learned that his parents hadn’t returned after they left last night, that they gave no indication of when they’d be back, or if they would.

He learned a lot. It was fucking exhausting.

Honestly, he was so tired with all of this that he was just – _done_.

He was done.

Claudia had said that his blood pressure was low, but he’d lost a liter and a half of blood to the floor of Billy’s Camaro, so it was expected. She and some of the nursing students would come in every couple hours and make him move his wrist around just to prove that he didn’t fuck up his dexterity or cut the feeling out of his fingertips, or some shit. They had explained it, but he hadn’t been listening because he had been _tired_.

Claudia would tell him every time that he’d be back on the court in no time at all, and would smile at him like she wanted it returned. All he could ever think was _whoopee fucking doo. Who cares_.

If this didn’t fucking kill King Steve than napalm wouldn’t.

The restraints had come off his wrist that morning, Claudia shook her head and _tsked_ about the night nurses leaving them on. She changed his bandages and Steve got to see the black stretch of stitches over angry red, and all he could think about were microchips.

Claudia told him that morning as she wiped down the cuts and bandaged his wrist, like they were gossiping over cut hands in her kitchen, that there was no reasons to leave the restraints on overnight because there was nothing in the room that he’d be able to hurt himself with anyways. She said that she knew that he wasn’t suicidal ( _anymore,_ she didn’t have to say) and that all of this was a formality. 

Steve had smiled at her vacantly, and he didn’t point out that there was a literal needle in his arm. If he’d learned anything from the dumb morning medical shows, it was that there were plenty of ways to hurt someone with a needle. He didn’t say anything though and she gave him her copy of Pride and Prejudice to read if he got bored.

It was her favorite book, she had told him. She’d brought it to read on her lunch break, like that was somehow a fun thing to do but she was happy to let him borrow it.

He’d spent the morning hours with Jason the hospital psychologist and the revolving door of nursing students, slowly tearing off bits of the blank page at the end of the book. He’d ball up the paper between his fingers and throw it towards the trashcan. He’d miss.

He remembered that he had wondered if she’d be mad at him for ruining her favorite book and had started to make plans to buy her a new leather-bound copy from a fancy bookstore in Chicago that he knew, but that just made him think of his car. He thought of shattered windows, and shattered glass, and the intimate way that he knew what it felt like in his skin.

He shut down all thoughts of books and glass and decided that he didn’t really care if she was mad at him or not.

He could’ve been tired from the exercise and the blood loss, from the lack of sleep or nearly dying. He could’ve just been tired from being poked and prodded by the nurses, or because of hospital food, or because his parents were always fucking exhausted even when they weren’t there, but he really wasn’t. He really was just fucking done.

“You are _such_ a goddamn idiot, Steve. My god, how-“

There was no hint of amusement in that voice, no fondness or fake bullshit love, or fake bullshit _friendliness_. Everything that he thought that he knew about that voice had disappeared like the restraints on his wrist, and the night, and his parents right out the door.

There wasn’t anger in that tone. There was no righteous fury, no concealed hatred, no _bullshit_. It was just sad.

There were tears drowning in that voice and Steve, he felt like he was drowning. _All the time_.

The words and the voice had to be real because they were weighted. They washed over him and crashed down upon him with the weight of hands engulfing his. The voice must have been real because nothing touched him in the in between, nothing touched him in the water.

 _Nance_.

He wasn’t sure if his mouth moved, or if he spoke, or if he _cared_ that she was there, present and real with small hands wrapped around his. He could feel her trembling.

Her voice had been like _wind_ , her touch as meaningless as rain. It was all oppressive humidity in breathing tunnels or hot summer days with no relief. So tangibly intangible, so _there_ , so pointless, and irrelevant, and nothing that he wanted right now.

He never got what he wanted.

Which was _home_.

He wanted to go to his empty house and drown in the confines of his nightmares and plaid wallpaper. He wanted to walk into the pool and drown, walk into the woods and never return. He wanted to have died instead of Barb. He didn’t _want_ Nancy.

He didn’t want to be seen like this by anybody, but most of all, he didn’t want to be seen by _her_. His hair was a mess, greasy and dirty, and gross to the touch. His face felt haggard, stiff and dry, and too pale. He felt like he’d been _gnawed_ hollow from the inside out, like he was filling with blood and the only thing keeping him together was the twenty-six stitches in his arms.

He felt _ugly_ which felt _worse_.

He was never going to be the handsome son again. His mother wasn’t going to squeeze his thinning shoulders and show him off to her friends, wasn’t going to gush about his hollow cheeks and sunken eyes, how fucking handsome he was.

It used to be an _honor_ to make out with him. Girls used to crawl over themselves for him even after he lost his King Steve status. No one was going to do that now. He was broken, socially fucking diseased.

He didn’t want to be seen.

Nancy spoke to his nearly closed eyes and his half-dreamed state. She gave his hand a squeeze between the two of her tiny ones, fingertips ghosting over his palm with something like comfort, like a longing that he’d left behind. Her voice was a quiet whisper, “I didn’t know this was how you felt. I thought that you were tired, that you were having nightmares, not that-“

Her breath shuddered, and she sighed, sounding exhausted. Steve felt so fucking _tired_ of being the reason that so many people felt tired, or sad, or that they needed to be here.

Steve felt _old_ , felt fucking ancient, felt _tragic_ like a cheap Elvis impersonation, and if Nancy ever really loved him than she would put him out of his misery. It’s be _mercy_ , but she didn’t, “I just wish that you would have talked to me, okay? We were never good to each other, never _talked_ to each other but we – we _should._ ”  

“None of us want to lose you,” She whispered in her soft voice, just the sound of it made Steve _know_ that her eyebrows were knitted up and drawn together, her bottom lip worried between her teeth like Steve was a confusing child-drawn map or a shitty college admissions essay. “You mean _so_ much to all of us.”

She doesn’t say _we_ love you, doesn’t say _I love you_. She was smarter than that because he would never believe it. He would call bullshit on it.

He knew that she would never allow herself to tell that lie again, to say that she loved him when she never could. She couldn’t bring herself to lie to him standing in the alley behind the gym, asking her to her face to just say that she loved him, and she wasn’t going to do it now when it didn’t matter.

What she said next was, “Your parents blame me, a part of them.”

She could tell that they did, she said in the breaking kind of whispers because she had always been so damn perspective. She said in a voice no higher than a whisper that there were rumors already saying that he had done – done _this_ because of her, that it was her fault.

She spoke in a pained voice, clasping his hand tighter, “It _is_ my fault, I gave you those pills. You could have – I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Steve, I-“

“It’s not your fault, Nancy.”

The words had been on his tongue, thick and heavy as they rolled around his mouth, sleepy as they went nowhere. He had formed those words in his head, gave them weight, and meaning, and organized little sentences to follow about microchips, and spies, and how he _hadn’t_ fucking tried to kill himself and _she_ should know that.

He had thought the words and formed them on his tongue. He rolled over their vowels and flattened their consonants, but he did not say them. Someone else did.

Steve felt – _startled_.

He jolted at the voice despite how soft and even, and firm it was. He felt lost when Nancy’s hand slipped from him, felt thrown off and alone like he was being pulled under his in between ocean. He thought that they were alone together, but they weren’t and now, she was gone.

He would have floated into an oceanic ether if he had felt so fucking _betrayed_. He had not asked to see Nancy, he didn’t even _want_ it, but she brought – there was _someone_ else seeing him. Someone else was here.

Steve blinked open dry eyes and the clock read 12:14. _Lunch_ time.

It felt almost like he’d been slapped in the face when he tilted his head away from the clock, followed up the back of Nancy’s pastel pink cardigan, up her tiny shaking frame to her curly hair and her head tilted forward. There was an ache in his neck and a searing hot burn flush across his cheeks, a _crack_ in his chest because Nancy was there, her forehead pressed against Jonathan’s.

They were standing there together with her arms, with the hand that she had abandoned Steve to the ether with, wrapped around Jonathan’s waist and bunched in his shirt. They were standing there, foreheads together and eyes closed as she made a soft sniffling noise and Jonathan whispered pointless meaningless words.

His hands were on her face, stroking her cheeks and fingers spread down to her neck, and Steve felt _livid_. He felt – he felt _hurt_ , and betrayed, and slapped that they were display a kind of intimacy in front of him like his life hadn’t sunk low enough without replaying his biggest fucking fuck ups.

He felt bitter, and angry, and _so_ much more than he’d felt in _days_. He could practically _feel_ Jonathan’s dry cracked hands on his face, _stroking_ , and his hot breath slipping down his nose and over his cheek, _infecting_ itself into his pores. He felt _sick._

He felt like he’d been struck with an iron, like he’d been kick in the chest by big feet and Billy Hargrove’s fist against his cheek. He _felt_ his memories all brimming up and overfilling, and his eyes _burnt_ in a thumping time with his heart, with the pulsing hurt in his veins.

He remembered so vivid and clear all the many time that Nancy had refused to kiss him in the hallways, the way that he made excuses in his head about her being subconscious after the pictures through his window thing. He remembered stomping down on hurt at all the times that she couldn’t hold his hand because she had too many books, how it was okay, she could hold her own books herself.

He remembered that she didn’t want him to walk her to class, that it was out of his way and it didn’t matter, and yeah, she’d see him after school. It was _fine_. He remembered that they didn’t even _eat_ lunch together because she didn’t want to _be_ with him in public, didn’t want to be with him at all because she _hated_ him. She never loved him.

It fucking _burnt_ like scarlet in his chest.

It cracked hard at his heart, hammering its way through his veins, and cuts, and stitches, and he just _snapped_. In one second, everything built to a bubbling point and it just _popped_ , and a noise escaped his lips that didn’t even sound like it could have come from him.

It sounded like a death rattle.

It sounded fucking defeated, fucking broken, like it fucking shattered on impact because he _broke_. He snapped with no repair, snapping into tears in one single horrifying second. 

He didn’t think that he even loved Nancy anymore. He really truly believed that if he rationalized it out that he’s realize that he was only holding onto her because after that Halloween party, he couldn’t remember being happy again. He couldn’t remember not feeling cracked, and broken, and hollow inside.

He had felt _okay_ after fighting the Demogorgon in the Byers’ living room. He felt like he could move passed that and he _had_ , he felt happy because Will was fine, and no one died, and Nancy was in love with him. He’d felt _great_ because he _won_.

He’d saved her and Jonathan, and she loved him, and he had changed so much for the better, but his grandmother had been right. Everything fell apart eventually, it just fell apart all at once for him.

And now, he was broken beyond repair.

Now, he was sobbing in front of his ex and her boyfriend.

Now, he _knew_.

No one was ever going to be able to love him when he was this broken, and old, and tired all the damn time. No one loved him. They never would, and they never have. He _knew_ that.

He just – it all built up at once inside of him and then flooded everything that had been hollow, that was oozing blood and infection, up to his eyes. He _burst_.

It settled into his chest, into his soul, that no one fucking _cared_ about him. No one could even put up a half-assed attempt to _pretend_ that they did. People just filtered in and out of his room for the same reason that the nurses did, it all just a sense of duty in order to keep their reputation intact. They had to look like they cared, not actually do it.

He was just a checkbox to mark off on a to-do-list. He was _pick up kids_. He was _turn over the laundry_. He was _call the pharmacy_. He was a chore and he fucking hated it.

Nancy’s eyes went wide as she whipped around to him. She looked as scared as Nancy would ever allow herself to look, she looked sad like she had any fucking reason to be either, “Steve – you need to calm down. You need to calm down now before you – we can’t allow you to-“

Steve was struck with the thought of all the things that he hadn’t been _allowed_ and everything kind of just fizzled out at the ends. He was empty suddenly, void. He felt like fucking _bleeding_.

At least, that would feel fucking _real_.

He rolled his sore wrist and thought about how he had been allowed to follow Nancy around like an idiot. He’d been allowed to fall head over fucking heels for her when she would never love him back, when she probably had always loved Jonathan.

He had been allowed to sit on the couch in her living room in fucking _sweaters_ on Christmas with her family, planning out a future like he fucking had one with her. He’d been allowed to love her with nothing but lies, and distain, and bullshit in return.

He had been allowed to watch her brother while the world nearly ended, allowed to be beaten up without _thanks_ , and sucked into a world _twice_ that he’d been trying so hard to leave behind. He had been allowed to watch her go into Jonathan’s arms, and hold his hand in the halls, kiss him before class, eat lunch together.

He had been allowed to push Billy’s buttons because Billy wanted to destroy Steve. He was allowed to _feel_ only on other people’s terms.

It wasn’t _fucking_ fair. It wasn’t _fair_.

It felt like he wasn’t allowed to be human half the time. It was like he wasn’t allowed to be real, or have feelings, or be _alive_ when it was inconvenient to other people. It was bullshit.

No one ever wanted Steve Harrington once they got him. He was never as shiny or new, or pretty when they got a good look at him.

People only wanted King Steve because he was cool by a senior standard, by a college standard. They only wanted him because he could get into the parties, because he always had beer, because he had money, and a pool, and low enough self-esteem that he could be convinced into anything.

People only ever wanted King Steve, or Rich Kid Steve, or _Jonathan._

He felt so _broken_ , just so fucking shattered because she was in love with Jonathan and it _showed_. It felt like she was rubbing it in his face, reminding him that he wasn’t fucking good enough for her, that no fucking wonder he ended up right where he was.

It was – honestly, it was so fucking rude. It was _mean_.

She tried, “Steve.”

“ _No_ ,” He snapped, sobbed, cried. He pulled his hand away when she reached for it so fast that it hurt to do. “No, you don’t get to touch me.”

“Okay,” She said, holding her hands out in front of her with some cheap new ring on her finger. Steve _hated_ it. “I won’t touch you, can you tell me what upset you?”

What fucking upset him? _Jesus_ , she sounded like his fucking parents. What did she _think_ upset him?

He was irrelevant, and empty, and everybody thought that he was trying to kill himself. _She_ thought that he tried to kill himself and she was supposed to _know_ him, they dated for a long time and he bared his soul to her, he gave her his heart and she thought –

And then – fucking _then_ , she had the nerve to come here and cry over his ruined fucking wrist about how she felt bad for herself. It wasn’t even about him. She didn’t care about him then, she didn’t care fucking now.

His fingernails dug, sharp and bitten, into pristine white bandaging, into black wire stitching. It hurt in a way that felt heady, felt like he was drunk on the pain, felt _real_.

“Go away,” He told her, voice sounding so fucking wrecked that he hated himself for it. He hated _her,_ fucking hated Jonathan. “Get away from me. You don’t fucking _care_ about me. You don’t get to-“

“Of course, I care about you, Steve,” She snapped. He shook his head, no, she fucking didn’t. “Steve, we’re your friends.”

His fingernails dug deeper as skin pulled. His fingers pressing into the slightly raised bumps of his dissipating stress rash, feeling over them for a microchip, a tracker. He laughed, “No one screws friends over the way you do, Nancy.”

“That’s not fair, Steve,” She told him, her mouth pulling down in a frown. “That’s not what any of this is about. It’s about you, we came here to see you because we’re worried.”

“Because you fucking think that I tried to _kill_ myself,” He hissed. “I _didn’t_ try to kill myself.”

“Steve,” She said. “You’re in the hospital for attempting suicide-“

“I fucking _didn’t_ ,” He yelled sharply, breathing out harshly through tears. “You should _know_ , you should know that I didn’t. I don’t – fuck, Nancy, I couldn’t write an essay without help, how would I have done _this_?”

Failing at something sounded exactly what he would do, he realized in the pause he took to force himself to breathe. _Fuck_.

He rolled his eyes up, trying to stop the crying but he could feel a sob trembling up his vocal chords. He shook his head, “I wasn’t trying to do that and you’re the – I thought that you’d believe me.”

It was almost funny, he thought as he looked at Nancy. She didn’t believe him, and he hadn’t believed her about Barb. Of course, Barb just left town even though she would never do that. Of course, he slit his own wrist in an attempt to end his life even though he would never do that.

 _God_.

Steve’s tongue felt too big for his mouth suddenly, his chest aching as his fingers grew slick. He could feel his breathe grow more and more erratic as his mind started to stall, repeating the thought over, and over, and over in a haunting spiral.

He wouldn’t slit his wrist if he wanted to kill himself. He would drown in his pool like Barb, or crash his car like James Dean, or follow Marilyn Monroe into a soft abyss.

“Steve, you’re going to-“ Jonathan’s hand _burnt_ against his skin, calloused fingers and dry hands just like he thought, yanking his hands apart. Steve didn’t want that at all.

“Don’t touch me,” He hissed, pushing back against and pulling roughly to the side. Hands scrambled at the sleeve of his gown and at his waist, pulling him back when he tipped violently off the side of the bed. “Don’t touch me! You don’t get to touch me, you –“

Steve clawed at the hands on him, digging into the skin until they were gone and then scrambling for anything to use. He grabbed Claudia’s paperback book from where he’d shoved it beneath his pillow and threw it at Jonathan as hard as he could, wheezing, “Get away from me!”

“Steve, _stop_ ,” Jonathan said firmly, grabbing him by the arm when he went to pick nervously at it again. He pressed the limb down against the mattress, his other hand pressing back against Steve’s shoulder to stop his frantic thrashing.

His voice was calm, “You’re bleeding, Steve, you need to stop. You’re panicking because you’re hyperventilating.”

“You need to slow your breathing down, it’s too erratic,” He said as Nancy rushed to the door to call a nurse, his voice to even and nice. His hands all over Steve, holding him down, and Steve didn’t _want_ this.

“Please, stop,” Steve’s voice sounded winded and pleading in his own ears, sounded weak. He just wanted it to stop, all of this.

“Just breathe,” Jonathan instructed him, placing the hand that he had ahold of against his stupid Ramones t-shirt, “Try to match my breathing, okay? It’s okay, everything is okay, but you need to slow your breathing down because you’re hurting yourself and you’re going to pass out.”

Steve knew what he needed. He needed Jonathan fucking Byers to stop talking to him like he was about to fall apart, he wasn’t _Will_. He needed Jonathan and Nancy to fucking _go_ , to walk out of his life and take all their wrong assumptions with them.

He needed to _know_ that there wasn’t a microchip in him. He needed to fucking _breathe_. He needed someone to fucking believe him. He needed a hell of a lot, but he didn’t need Jonathan. What he needed was-“

“Stevie, my god.”

 _Fuck_. He didn’t need _that_.

He never got what he wanted so, of course, his mother was here.

Steve felt all at once like he’d been drained of everything inside of him. His eyes felt puffy and droughted, his lungs burnt. Crisp pristine bandages were spotted red. He felt like the universe fucking _hated_ him.

He wondered absently as Jonathan was replaced by his mother, by Claudia, by the doctor with the dark hair, if anybody would actually cry at his funeral. If he had fucked up just a bit more or if Billy had drove a little shower, would anybody had fucking cared?

He already knew the answer.

His mother would have cried. His father would have stood by her side with dry eyes and a hard look, holding her like he loved her, like he loved _him_. He would continue the Harrington tradition of falling apart slowly and behind closed doors, if he bothered to fall apart at all. Steve doubted that he’d care much beyond the cost of a funeral and what a dead kid did to his reputation.

But his mother would cry.

She’d cry perfect mascara tears down pale cheeks that looked so much like his. Her dark eyes would go shiny and big at the barest mention of his name, she’d choke on every sob. She’d fall in the dirt at his grave, or faint, or advocate for teen suicide awareness on national television. She would play up the grieving mother and write a best selling book about it, make another half million.

They’d sell the house and go to Paris, or Venice, and eventually, they would forget about him. Everybody would.

He felt a prick in his arm and then felt heavy, Claudia’s voice sweet as honey in his ear, “There you go, darling, this will help you relax.”

His arm was an attachment of his body, his mind had supplied his absently as it was pulled away from him to be looked at and fixed. His arm was an attachment of his body, but not of his mind.

His mind was _there_ , but it was gone. His mind was _his_ , but someone else’s. _Alive,_ but not. His mind was the overseeing eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg, distant like Michael Myers stalking from the trees. His mind was the Jaws theme tune, always humming but never seen. Fading into nothing. 

 He heard his mother’s voice firm and cold, “I think now is the time that you two leave. I’m sure that you have school.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Dr. Clinton voice was warm as Steve’s eyes drooped shut and his body relaxed against him, “We’ll have you fixed right up, buddy.”

Steve wanted to believe that.

 

Steve opened his eyes groggily to the sound of a pen clicking.

The on-call psychiatrist was a lanky man named Jason.

Jason had dyed black thick hair like he’d grayed too early in thirties and a thicker pair of glasses. He wore a cheap suit with an ugly green tie and had a smiley face sticker stuck to his lapel. He wore a Hawkins High class ring and Steve didn’t trust him.

No one wore a class ring that didn’t peak in high school. Steve didn’t even _buy_ one, and it just made him _hate_ Jason more.

He hated him from the first time that he had come into his room this morning, taking up space with a meaningless toothy smile and the overwhelming smell of Old Spice deodorant. He hated the tired exhaustion on his face, the way that he looked too young and too old all at one.

He hated him because he wore a watch and he clicked his pen once, twice. He never clicked it a third time. Never a forth. Just once, twice.

Steve didn’t trust that.

Jason showed up first thing in the morning, strolling in already looking tired as the night nurses dragged themselves tiredly passed the door on their way out of the building. He had introduced himself with a hand that Steve couldn’t shake, told him not to call him Dr. Appleton, call him _Jason_. He told him that he would be back around to chat, that there was an issue that he needed to attend to.

Steve wasn’t even the most important part of his own breakdown, he had laughed about it then.

He had come back an hour later, a new sticker added to his lapel, and Steve had told him nothing. They’d stared at each other for twenty minutes until Steve faked falling asleep.

They did the same now.

He didn’t even have it in him to tell him fake and unimportant bullshit like the stuff that he’d told Dr. Winston. He refused to give a reason to anybody to justify why they thought that he would try to kill himself because he _didn’t_.

God, he wouldn’t do it in the most dramatic way possible if he had been trying to kill himself. He wouldn’t do it with a fucking witness.

Steve didn’t have any teenage angst bullshit to spill because Steve _was_ teenage angst bullshit. He was government conspiracy and cover up bullshit, monster fighting bullshit, never fucking loved _bullshit_. He wasn’t telling anybody anything anymore.

Jason stared at him, clicked his pen once, twice.

He said, “You had quite an eventful midday.” 

He said, “You tore two stitches.

He said, “Steve, you _need_ to talk to me.”

He said it with the authority of someone that thought that they knew more than him, that his mother used when she said that of course she cared about him, why else would she expose his childhood to the boring losers that read her books. He said it like Steve needed anything when all he felt was fucking dead.

“It will make you feel better.”

_Fucking unlikely._

No, talking wouldn’t actually make Steve feel better because it would make him paranoid, because everybody thinks that he killed himself even though he didn’t, because no one actually ever listened to him because they think that they know better.

Dr. Winston had said that talking would make Steve feel better and now he was in a hospital. His mother used to say the same thing all the time and would use his life as her source material. All therapists were fucking _fakes_.

He’d rather spill his literal guts to a pack of hungry Demo-dogs.

Eventually, he said with a sigh, “I don’t know what happened in the parking lot.”

“You don’t remember?”

_I wasn’t even there. I’ve been dead for months._

Steve gave him a sardonic smile before his mouth tilted into something soft and sad, and so fucking _tired_. He told him that he didn’t remember what he’d been thinking when he walked outside but he wasn’t thinking about killing himself because he didn’t fucking try to kill himself.

“Are you saying that you think that you disassociated?”

Steve lied, “I have no clue what that means.”

“Disassociation is an involuntary escape from reality that sometimes happens as a response to a traumatic event,” Jason explained. “You’ve heard of an out of body situation, it’s like that. Your mother said that a few months ago that you were attacked by a teammate, were you thinking about that before you cut your wrist.”

 _Of course, she fucking told you that_.

“I went outside for a smoke,” Steve said through his teeth. “I wasn’t thinking about anything, nothing happened.”

“Steve, your window was broken. Something clearly happened.”

Jason thought that he was in some kind of shock, or denial, or both about what happened. He thought that he was distancing himself from what had happened, and he wasn’t exactly wrong.

Steve was not so far gone that he didn’t realize how all of this looked, how crazy all of this was, how it _sounded_. Jesus, he wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t been a part of it, if he didn’t _know_ about the government cover ups and conspiracies, and the reason why Benny’s death was always going to be unsolved.

He was not so far gone that he did not see how far he’d fallen down this hole. He didn’t grow up a Harrington to not be acutely aware of the value of his imagine, the value of a moment, and now both could be manipulated to work for you or against you. No.

No, he knew exactly what this moment was.

This was the moment that they labeled him crazy, or depressive, or suicidal. This was the moment that they decided how broken his was and if he was too shattered to be fixed or they needed special drugs to make him unable to think. This was the moment that they made the whole world stop believing him.

He needed to walk carefully, and he knew it.

Jason made a vague threat that he’d masqueraded as a casual comment about the police being involved, about the possibility of a criminal investigation. If Steve didn’t tell them what happened than the police would have to treat it as crime.

Steve didn’t know if it was true, but he did know that everybody thought that he tried to kill himself despite how many times he’d said otherwise. He asked sarcastically, “Is Hopper going to come arrest me then?”

Jason just shook his head. He told him that either Steve hurt himself or that somebody hurt him. Since Steve had previously been injured in an attack and was claiming that he didn’t do anything, the police would look into the people that were around him before it happened. He said that that included the boy that brought him in.

Steve felt cold and humiliated.

He thought about the basketball team being dragged into the office, thought about Tommy telling his mother about the sleeping pills, thought about Nancy. He felt awful and _sad_ , and so fucking hopeless all the goddamn time.

He didn’t waver in his answer, but he gave up.

He said, “It was an accident.”

He said, “I fell.”

He said, “I tripped.”

Jason’s response was slow with tired disbelief, “You _tripped_.”

“I broke the window in my car,” He said, not even knowing why he was lying because it felt a lot like he was protecting Billy Hargrove when he fucking hated him. “I was frustrated at my mom for taking my keys and I – overreacted. I wanted to – to break something, wanted to leave.”

“I just – I wanted my spare key out of the glove compartment,” He continued. “And then I – I tripped and hurt myself. It was an accident.”

“You broke the window on the driver’s side.”

“Yeah, so?”

Jason didn’t respond for a while, writing down in his little checkered notebook before saying plainly, “It’s nothing really. Did you not think that if you were planning to drive your car that you shouldn’t shatter glass where you’d be sitting?”

“I, uh, no – I didn’t think that,” Steve said, playing to the one constant consensus about him. He was an idiot. “But, like, I’m really dumb so I didn’t think about that.”

“Steve,” Jason sighed, his hand clasping over Steve’s and it felt warm. “I need a straight answer from you. I cannot help you through this if you don’t give me at least that.”

Steve _gave_.

He gave all the time with interest, to everybody.

If he bummed a cigarette off somebody than he made sure to pay it back with a pack. If Tommy’s mom invited him over for dinner than he got Tommy and Carol booze from the liquor shop that took fake IDs. When a girl got him off, he got her off twice. He _gave_.

He gave because he knew, like everybody _knew_ , that he didn’t make up for what he lacked in any other aspect. He was a little dumb, a little slow. He tried a little too hard or not enough. He didn’t talk well or think like he should. He gave because he had the money and the willingness to sacrifice parts of himself.

He gave, and everybody took.

He gave, and people took, took, took in uneven proportions.

Steve could have laughed because Jason _wanted_ something from him.

He could have laughed because he’d lost more than he was every going to get in return, and Jason was just out of fucking luck, “I have nothing to tell you.”

 

“What do you mean by spies?”

Jason thought that he should be around the people that care about him, thought that it was important that he speak with his visitors and that fresh air would do him good.

There was snow on the ground in the courtyard where Jason sat with his notebook, and it was so windy that Dustin’s words were nearly obscured as they walked around the small track, “What did you mean when you said spies yesterday?”

Steve’s slippers and socks were getting wet, the bottom of his hospital issued pants were starting to get dirty. His feet were freezing because he wasn’t allowed to have his tennis shoes in the Behavioral Health unit.

Steve thought that Hawkins General was kind of a shitty hospital because surely, if he couldn’t be trusted to have shoe strings without slitting his wrist than he shouldn’t be allowed to go outside.

But he was outside with Dustin which was _better_. He didn’t even consider that his hospital room could be bugged, and they were a far enough distance away that Jason couldn’t overhear them.

Steve nodded to him. His eyes wide and open, and honest, “Like fucking Reagan, man. The government, people in suits, spies. They think that I know shit about like – everything and for once, I actually do.”

“You’ve seen them?”

“Yes, my parents-“ Steve took a breath, pulling Dustin farther along the track so that there were even more distance between him and Jason. “My parents sold me out to the government, that’s why they’ve been here so long. They usually have a meeting or a trip, or something after a week of being here. And my – my therapist, too. Spy.”

“Jason?”

“I don’t know, probably,” Steve breathed out. Everything about Jason read _spy, spy, spy_ but Dustin was already shaking his head.

“ _Steve_ , Jason goes to my church,” He told him. “He’s Preacher John’s step-son. I’ve known him like, my entire life.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” He shook his head. “Haven’t you heard of a mole, or a sleeper agent, or plants? Spies go undercover all the time, like – like, Russians do it to get American secrets. We have secrets and made a pretty big damn show of having them. The lab was on the news and they’re – they’re after me, they think I know something.”

Dustin opened his mouth, but Steve assured him, “I haven’t said anything. Not about the Upside Down, not about El. I swear.”

“I believe you, Steve,” Dustin told him, and Steve could breathe about that. “But I don’t think that Jason would be one of them. Why would they hire him, it’s not like you have been planning this hospital stay and Jason goes to church as rarely as I do. I don’t think that he’s a spy.”

“My parents-“

“That’s also not proven.”

“It’s _true_ ,” Steve insisted. “I know that it is because they – they’re suddenly interested in my life, and they’ve never been before.”

“Maybe because you look like a zombie half the time, Steve.”

“Doctor – Doctor Winston _is_ a spy,” He told him. “I fucking _know_ that she is. I was going to talk to Hopper once about – about all of this, about everything that was going on with me and they _bugged_ Nancy’s phone. They knew that I was going to stop there to take her painting supplies so they bugged it, so I wouldn’t talk.”

“They don’t want me talking to you guys, think about it,” He continued. “That’s what they _want_ , they want to divide us up, so they can pick us off one by one, and they started with me. And I-“

He took a deep breath, getting back on topic, “Dr. Winston and my ma, they have this cover story for her. She’s a ‘ _friend.’_ They said that she taught at Purdue when my ma did research for her second book, and I know that’s a lie. My ma never did research there, I would _know_.”

“What’s her full name?” Dustin asked, pulling his science notebook out of the backpack that he still had on and then finding a pencil. “We’ll call the school and see if that’s true, verify her story. If they’ve never heard of her than we’ll know it’s a fake. It’s a starting place.”

“Yeah, that’s smart,” Steve nodded. “Her name is Janice, Janice Winston. She would’ve taught like psychology or something, but I’d check all the departments. Don’t use your home phone, they can trace the call.”

“We’ll use a pay phone,” Dustin said. “The one in the diner, everybody in town goes to the diner.”

“Promise?” He asked. Dustin nodded so Steve moved on to his next piece of evidence, “They bugged my house.”

“Did you find the bugs?”

“Not – _yet_ , but I’m like…” Steve trailed off, frowning. “It’s not like I can really look without raising the suspicious of my parents. It’s not like, I’m not observant but I know that they did. They would be shitty spies if I found them easily and some bugs are small.”

“But you haven’t found any?”

“They’re _there_ , Dustin?”

Dustin sighed but he didn’t push the issue, telling him firmly, “I’m going to tell Hopper about it. He has a RF signal detector that picks up on electromagnetic fields in- you don’t care about the technical. He can sweep for bugs and we’ll see if this Dr. Winston is who she says that she is. Do you hear clicking on your phone?”

“What?”

“When you answer the phone, do you hear clicking?” He asked, and Steve thought about Jason clicking his pen. “That could mean that they tapped your calls.”

“I don’t – I don’t know. I don’t use the phone a lot.”

“We’ll check that too, just in case, Steve,” Dustin told him, squeezing his hand. “Don’t worry. You mess with one party member, you mess with us all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THINGS: 
> 
> (1) I literally struggled all week with this chapter until like nine o'clock last night and then bang, this. 
> 
> (2) Contrary to this story, I actually like Nancy and Jonathan as a couple but I feel like Steve's at a point where he feels awful all the time and it's easier to blame it on the things that he knew hurt him. 
> 
> (3) Not that it's relevant but I listened almost exclusively to Puttin' on the Ritz by Taco when writing this.


	21. Chapter 21

He had wanted to be a movie star, once.

Back when kids wanted to be anything and thought that they actually could, he had wanted to be up on big silver screens, and in Hollywood movie posters, and in the magazines that his mother claimed to be too educated to read. He had wanted to be famous, and _known_ , and loved for all the reasons that felt _nice_.

But, he had been a kid then.

Kids thought that they could do anything when the world was small and limited to just the people that were telling them how much potential they had, how big they were going to get, how great that they’d be _someday_.

He had wanted to be a lot of dumb and foolish, outlandishly unrealistic and vain things. He had wanted to be a lot of things that he had no hope of ever being, that he wasn’t smart, or good, or talented enough to be. Only his father really had the gall to tell him how stupid he was being, _‘It’s time you get your head out of the clouds, Steven, and focus on something that you can actually do.’_

He had wanted to be an astronaut too, had watched the moon landing a hundred times and wanted to be _there_ with them. He had wanted to waltz across the moon with that Wendy chick from Super Friends and fight space monsters from the Phantom Zone with Superman. He wanted to be Robin to Batman, and Batman to the Justice League.

He had wanted to be a Lost Boy, and a pirate, and Babe Ruth on the baseball pitch. He had wanted to swim in the Olympics, play the Stanley Cup, and the World Series, and make it all the way through March Madness. He wanted to play sports professionally and spit on national television.

He wanted to dance with pretty girls, and be as tall as his father, and just be _happy_ , and carefree, and loved by everybody. He wanted girls to swoon at him like he was Elvis, fall in love with the strum of his guitar like a Beatles, and for all of his make believing to come true.

He never remembered a time that he didn’t struggle with school, didn’t sit and study for hours only to fail test after test. He knew that he wasn’t smart, that his parents were never going to brag about him the way that other parents bragged about Spelling Bees and Science Fair wins.

He knew that he was _handsome_ , that he was _pretty_ , that he could use that to some advantage. He knew that a lot of people got a lot of places even though they didn’t do great in school, and all he really wanted was for his parents to be _proud_ of him.

He just wanted to _be_.

He had wanted to be in the movies.

In some shape and form, through playing superheroes and obsessing over firemen, he had wanted to be in movies. He wanted to be on silver screens because everybody loved movies, because he wanted to be _someone_ that mattered, that you had no choice but to _see_ and _hear_.

He was five years old the first time that his grandmother sat him down in front of the television and turned on _The Seven Year Itch,_ the first time that she introduced him to Marilyn Monroe and told him that the roads to tragedy were all beautiful but some of them were _iconic_.

She told him in her ancient Italian knowledge, in concepts and words that he didn’t understand but never let go of, as Marilyn danced across that subway grate, that this was the beginning of the end for pretty little Marilyn.

He’d felt a pooling sadness inside of him, something too old and too mature for his age, watching Marilyn in her colored glory, in her iconic white dress and white blonde hair, and lips as red as blood, and know that she was gone. His grandmother had said it was a tragedy.

His mother had said, _don’t put those kinds of thoughts in his head, he’s too young for that._

She was a ghost, Steve got the concept then and he got it now, movies were just memories so that people, and things, and ideas were not forgotten, and he _wanted_ that. In the same way that he wanted the hushed silences that befell the room at the exclaimed, _‘Isn’t it delicious?’_

He had been awed and a little in love with the way that she was noticed effortlessly in all the ways that he always _wanted_ to be, even then. She was naturally perfect and _iconic_ , and his grandmother said to him, “That’s an imagine that the world will never forget.”

Steve had wanted to _be_ that moment, to live in it and make it his own, to be loved and awed at like Marilyn in white. He had wanted to be in movies.

He was eleven and missing his own birthday, sitting on his grandmother’s scratchy old carpet and watching all the same old James Dean movies that he’d grown up on. He watched James Dean star as Jim Stark, drunk in the city jail and cool as hell, and hearing all the same things that his father had said to him, _don’t I buy you everything you want, a bicycle – you get a bicycle._

And Steve heard his own words echoed in a quiet sullen resolution, _you buy me many things._

His grandmother had clicked her tongue and jiggled her bracelet, _tski_ ng at him in her old Italian accent, _mimmo, up. In chair. That close to television, you’ll got blind._

She had wrapped her arms around him even though he was too big for it and his grandfather was dead, and she was alone in America because his parents left town on his birthday _again_. She had told him that she saw the same sad pained look in his eyes as in James Dean’s.

Steve had said _sorry_ even though he didn’t really know what he was supposed to be sorry about, and she had said _no, I’m sorry, mimmo_ even though she didn’t do anything to him.

He had told her in echoed quiet resolution, _I’m going to be in the movies someday, Nana_. He never thought that she ever really believed him.

Those moments and memories, and all his childhood wishes felt slotted and filed away, pressed like flowers in books that he’d forgotten about. It felt like another life, far away like his days of being a lonely kid in a big house with nothing to do but fantasize and pretend, and play make believe about his future.

He didn’t feel like the same kid that believed in a future where S T E V E H A R R I N G T O N was up in big multicolored lights, burning bright and hot into the stratosphere for the whole damn world to see.

His name, blinking to life in flashing lights, _S T E V E,_ as deserving and brilliant as Rose’s petty imaginings at the end of Gypsy. His name, crawling up the end credits of Hollywood blockbusters and taking top billing. His face, on every screen and magazine, and commercial, poster.

Everything coming up _Steve_.

That kid used to imagine himself as some squarer jawed and sharper cheeked version of himself, pictured himself some leather jacket, cigarette smoking cool guy. His hair care advice painted in the magazines, his name in the tabloids, his face something that no one could escape from, or _wanted_ to escape.

That kid had imagined himself as some underdog action hero, the doe-eyed romantic lead. He pictured himself the guy that got the girl, the bad boy with a heart of gold, the one with the happy ending. He had pictured himself as every person that he’d ever wanted to be, not who he turned out as.

That kid never considered the fact that he was the clink in the armor, the bad apple. He was the babysitter that got killed, the jackass that got killed off screen, whose dead body was used as a jump scare. He was the swimming pulled beneath and never returned, the one electrocuted deservingly on the gym floor.

That kid grew up into every single character that deserved to die, and he hadn’t seen it coming.

That kid had wanted to be like the handsome men and the pretty girls that chewed gum through interviews, that said nothing of substance but looked good saying it. He had wanted to be one of the pretty Hollywood airheads that knew all his lines and just the right time to smile, that knew everybody that was anybody and where all the cameras were.

He had wanted it to be _fine_ that he was charming but ditzy, pretty in Hollywood’s limelight but the kind of idiot struggling through sixth grade math. He had wanted it to be _okay_ that he didn’t know a lot because of his humble beginnings and small town upbringing, and he simply not knowing any better.

He had wanted to be Hawkins, Indiana’s success story.

He had wanted to be the one that got away, the one that _made_ it.

He used to go to sleep just dreaming of the day that they painted the town red for him, that they threw parades for his return. He used to think about his face in the papers, and on the local news stations, and everybody flocking to the theaters to say that they knew him back when.

He had imagined a future of paparazzi with flashing cameras and fans all wanting his picture. He had pictured a future where he had a personal assistant and an agent, and everybody wanted him. He had pictured a future where his parents had to schedule an appointed with _him_ , and their birthdays were missed for movie premiers and cool parties.

Then that kid hit puberty, and seventh grade, and Jesse Hensen hard in the face for saying that he looked like a girl. That kid had his ass handed to him on the basketball court during gym and his nose broken, and he realized just how much he hated the skin crawling feeling of being _seen_.

That kid built up a persona, fell into the role with ease. That kid became King Steve with all his big hair, and flashing money, and all the things that everybody had expected from a Harrington in Hawkins. That kid drowned in his own insecurity while smiling in the role that he’d been dealt, hid in the shadow of Keg King Steve Harrington and grew weak in the cold.

He played the rich kid, played the doe-eyed small town lady’s man, played King Steve at every party. Eventually everybody stopped looking for anything beneath the surface, and he felt he could _breathe_.

It was an academy award winning performance.

_I’d like to thank…_

He’d realized that he hated talking to people, hated the way that words stuck to the roof of his mouth and his mind worked too slow to keep up, how he never said the right thing. He hated that he either talked too much, or too sweet, or too little, or too harsh. He hated that he always said the wrong thing, and how easy it’d been to let Tommy’s fist do his talking for him, let Carol’s silver tongue talk for him.

It had been so easy to let everybody talk and just agree with them, and no one even noticed that he was doing it.

He had realized that same year that he didn’t just hate talking to people but in front of them, _at_ them. He hated the clammy childhood shyness that he was told that he’d get over, that never went away. It was never outgrown, just pushed through miserably.

He hated the sound of his own voice, how it drew in his shoulder and his spine with every breath he took like he was gasping into a blackhole. He hated how he felt too big and too small in his skin, how his knees felt week and his voice was too loud, and harsh, and just stuttered and broke.

He couldn’t _stand_ the way that his mouth would go dry and his tongue would feel heavy, and too big for his mouth. All the way that his words just stumbled down into a collection of _um, well, I mean, like, uhh…_

Tommy used to snicker in the back of the room and sneer just loud enough for _everybody_ to hear, _mush mouth._ Laughter would scatter around the room and die, and Steve would feel like he wanted to die too. He used to want to cry, acutely aware that he was mumbling too much and reading too slow when called to read in English class, dreading for the inevitable, _“Jesus, Harrington, do you even know how to read?_ ”

His eighth grade drama teacher used to cry out during class from somewhere beyond the stage’s bright lights, “Enunciate, Steven. _E-nun-ci-ate_ , the audience _wants_ to _hear_ you.”

Steve never thought that Villager Number Three was the kind of loud asshole that shouted all the time. Villager Number Three was just a timid cattle farmer that wanted to _not_ talk to anybody, but it didn’t matter what he thought. It never did.

He never _e-nun-ci-ated_ enough and quit the fall musical a week before curtains went up. He gave up on drama altogether and had the administrator in the office switch him into Film Appreciation, he gave up on the dream of being in movies too.

So, he had wanted to be a director.

There were plenty of people that loved George Lucas and Steve Spielberg, that planned whole nights around geeking out over their movies. There were people that gushed over the works of Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick in his Film Appreciation class, but Steve had never been clever enough to direct anything.

He’d never had a loud enough vision, a strong enough _view_. He changed with the fads and the times. He was always cool but never visionary. He wasn’t a _leader_ , he was a close follower, the kind that stepped on heels and made people thing that he was leading, but he was just never going to be creative enough to come up with something that hadn’t already been invented.

So, he’d wanted to be a writer after that.

He filled up his drawers with notebooks and fancy pens, and sat down every night to write with the images of his mother gushing over his numerous best sellers to all her friends with doctor sons. His mother had told him that he was a great writer, that he’d won that contest, and his father always said that it was the only thing that he was actually good at.

So, he wrote what he knew, and it was shit. He wrote what he didn’t know, and it was also shit.  

So, he sat down every night with paper and pen, and every night, he just stared at blank paper.

So, he didn’t have a story worth telling.

So, he’d never be a writer.

It was _okay_.

When seventy-two hours crawled to a close at midday on day three and Steve was allowed to leave the hospital, he was released into the custody of his parents. The nurses gave him papers, and Claudia hugged him, and his parents presented him with a large hoodie and a pair of sunglasses.

He could’ve laughed – this was his big damn movie star moments.

They acted like he was going to walk outside to paparazzi camera flashings and news crews like he was some superstar that overdosed on cocaine, that he’d have to sneak out or stand there looking _dead_ , and tell everybody how sorry he was. It was _hilarious_.

Did they really think that the whole damn town didn’t already know? _Morons_.

It was _Hawkins_ , everybody knew everything.

That was how small towns worked.

It was like he was living out his movie star moment in the most pathetic way possible, being wheeled out of the hospital to a cold and empty outside by an orderlie and his parents flanked on either side. It would’ve been stupidly, _hilariously_ thrilling if it wasn’t so acutely sad.

He just _knew_.

This was the final nail in the coffin of King Steve, this was the aftermath of his rash thinking and his grand farewell. There wasn’t high school protocol for failed suicide attempts, so everybody would fall back onto what they knew. All anybody knew was how to terrorize the weak.

He felt suffocated in the backseat of his father’s Lincoln, drowning in the dark tint of the windows and his mother’s worried dark eyed look. He felt suffocated in the damp winter rain air, suffocated in a hoodie too thin for this weather and sleeves too long, in the tension of parents that didn’t _get_ it.

He shivered, and his father turned up the heat.

It felt like it was a brand new day in a brand new life. A life, _after_.

None of it felt good so it was easier to feel nothing.

With mile after mile through midday isolation, and step after step, after step out of the car, he could feel his mind and body separating like oil and water. He could feel the _physical_ pull of dissociation as his mind limped pathetically away from a sharp new world.

He didn’t even feel like Steve anymore, he felt like words on a script and actions on a screen. It was his face and his hair, and his fucked up wrists bundled up beneath his Hawkins Basketball hoodie on a silver screen somewhere.

Steve had never felt more removed from who he was as he felt trekking up the snowy path to the house that he’d spent his whole childhood playing make believe. It felt otherworldly, and strangely ominous, riddled with cautionary threat. _Don’t go_.

He swore that he could almost _see_ the manifestation of those twin little girls with matching outfits and matching tricycles from The Shining, flashing like warning sign. _Leave now_. _Don’t go inside._

He closed his eyes against them, taking a deep wintery breath and took another step, after step, after step. It was not a warning, there were no twins on bikes, no hallway of blood, no nothing. Just – _Dustin_.

Dustin was there, with his bike tossed over on its side on the front porch, mitten-covered hands clenched together, and scarf piled high around his neck. He jumped up from his spot on the porch steps when he saw Steve and ran, and hugged him, “My mom told me when you were getting out because I wanted to know, I wanted to make sure that you were okay, and like – I need to talk to-“

“Mr. Henderson,” Steve’s father said with a tired sigh, his own leather gloved hand coming up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “I suppose you did not think that _now_ would not be the time for visitors.”

“Steve needs his rest,” His mother said gentler, “Come inside, we’ll call your parents.”

“Uh, no thanks, I need to speak to Steve, and I biked all the way here,” Dustin said flippantly, talking to Steve’s parents like there were _common_ _folk_. It was so jarring to the both of them that Steve couldn’t help but laugh as Dustin continued, “And like, no offense, but he didn’t say that he didn’t want to see me so, I really need to talk to him, and-“

“You can come up to my room,” Steve cut in, his hand barely resting on the hood of Dustin’s jacket before he was marching towards the house, not giving anybody the chance to change their mind.

“Not for long, Stevie,” His mother told him, stopping him with a hand at his elbow when he tried to walk. “You and I need to have a talk of our own and you do need your rest. This has been quite an ordeal for everybody.”

Steve wanted to tell her that the only reason any of them had to deal with this _ordeal_ was because she was a traitorous fucking spy and he hated her, but he smiled.

He could not help the way movie script way that his eyes took notice of everything like he was seeing them for the first time, the pearls around her neck, the fur lining her tailored coat, the panty hoses and dress despite the weather. His father in a nice black suit.

He wondered who the client was.

There was a _second_ that he felt like that sad lonely child again with the dead grandfather and the same James Dean eyes, felt a crushing wave of disappointment and the wash of unsurprise indifference. Everything _hurt_ inside of him all at once.

Nothing had ever hurt in his dreams but this, it pulsed in the swell of his wrist and echoed in reverberations around the emptiness of his chest. He didn’t even feel hollow anymore because he didn’t feel _here_ , he didn’t even feel like a shell of a former king.

He felt like Marley’s ghost, carrying heavy wrought iron chains and never knowing relief. He always wondered if Scrooge’s good deeds meant anything in the end, if he could make up for the _layers_ of wrongs that he’d committed.

He wondered if he felt like _this_ because he was a bad person and no amount of _trying_ was ever going to make up for it. It _burnt_ and hurt in all the ways that dreams never did because it was movie theater pain. It was hot and aching, and dramatic but only for moment, it was movie magic that washed the pain in receding ways, forgetting it.

If Steve was honest with himself, he was never as dumb as everybody thought that he was. He was just slow, which basically meant stupid to clever and smart people, but really, it was just different.

It didn’t mean that he needed coddled, or held, or his mother’s ringed fingers stroking over his elbow. It didn’t mean that he suddenly needed his father’s softer eyes but narrowed mouth, that he needed them or their lies, or their questions. He just needed to _respond_.

“ _Sure_ thing, Mother.”

His chest hurt, and his wrist pulsed, and he _knew_ that they’d been in his room. He scrubbed at his eyes in the doorway of his bedroom, already feeling the closed bar feel of plaid wallpaper, and he wanted to _leave_.

Spies, in his room.

Spies and their devices.

“Stevie, I hope that you don’t mind,” His mother said behind him in the hall, cups of hot chocolate for him and Dustin, sitting on the bed. “It was necessary that we went through your room and removed anything that could be used to cause harm. That is understandable, at least for now.”

“Yeah,” He muttered, and shut the door between them and her fucking hot chocolate. He was hardly surprised that the lock was gone.

He knew that he needed to search everything, that for everything that had been removed, a hundred different kinds of listening devices could have been put in.

They’d be watching now that the tracker was out of his arm.

“Steve, I talked to Hopper yesterday and-“

Steve put a finger to his lip and Dustin’s voice strangled out immediately. He watched as Steve eased the door back open to an empty hallway, and then mouthed, _‘listening devices.’_

Dustin shook his head, “Steve, that’s-“

He trailed off because Steve wasn’t listening, already turning his back on him and digging loudly into his messy desk drawers. He didn’t stop until he found a cassette tape and then shoved it into the radio. The opening sound of Toto reverberated like an incoming thunderstorm through the radio speakers, turned up to a screeching volume.  

Steve hadn’t realized that when he picked up the cassette that it was the one that Nancy had made him for his birthday last year, eighteen songs that she said reminded her of them. Steve smiled, _of course_.

His life was unfolding like some kind of cliché movie – he was the heartbroken loser, the guy at the beginning. He one that lost the girl and never got her back, _of course_ , it would be the cassette that _poured_ Nancy Wheeler from his speakers.

He sighed and filed all thoughts of her to the back of his mind before turning to Dustin, “They won’t be able to hear over the music.”

“What?” Dustin shouted back. “Steve, I can’t-“

Dustin sighed and turned the radio down, telling Steve as his eyes went wide, “ _Steve_ , I snooped around and found your spare key, I gave it to Hopper. He searched for-“

Dustin cringed as his hand was suddenly yanked away from the radio at an almost uncomfortable angle before it was let go. The radio was turned back up, and he gave up on it for a moment, “I think that you’re just paranoid, Steve!”

“I gave Hopper your key, so he could search for bugs,” Dustin shouted over the music at him. Steve nodded intently. “He didn’t find anything.”

“What?”

“No one bugged you,” Dustin said, turning the music back down to something manageable. “There wasn’t a bug anywhere in the house, he looked.”

“They could – they could just be undetectable.”

“ _No_ , they couldn’t. The science doesn’t work that way,” Dustin told him. “I think – I’m sorry, Steve, but we called Purdue, too. I told them that I was doing research for a newspaper article on Dr. Winston, and they gave me a lot of information on her. Like, I think that she’s been working there for a long time, and they gave me other numbers.”

“It was – it’s not _true_ ,” Steve shook his head. “I would remember if my mom did research there.”

“Yeah, uh, well, I asked about that, too, just to make sure,” Dustin told him. “They said that she used to have an office in one of their buildings, and I’m – I’m sorry, Steve, but I think you’re just paranoid. I think that you’re just-“

“I’m _not_ making it up! It’s – I’m being _spied_ on, Dustin. I know that I am,” Steve said harshly. “They put microchips in my ice cream, and put one in my arm, and I had a rash because of it. I had to-“

“ _Steve,_ ” Dustin said in a firm voice, but it _wobbled_ because he was a _kid_ and Steve was breathing hard, and loud, and – _he didn’t believe him_. “I know that you believe that but right now, and it feels real, and I’m – I’m so sorry, but the science doesn’t support it. There isn’t evidence.”

“It’s true.”

“I’m not – you know, like, science isn’t one hundred percent right,” Dustin told him. “Like no one ever actually proved that one plus one equals two, we just accept that it does. There are hundreds of species of animals that we don’t even know exist, and people used to think that taking baths were bad for you.”

“There’s no evidence, _yet_ ,” Dustin stressed. “But we know that there are no bugs inside of you or in your house, and we know that Dr. Winston really is a doctor that can help you. We just-“

“You think I’m crazy.”

“I think that you’re scared,” He said. “And I’m afraid that you’re going to hurt yourself because of a theory that doesn’t have any evidence behind it. We locked the Upside Down away, Steve, and – and hopefully, it’ll stay there but even if it doesn’t, for now. We’re safe.”

Steve wrapped his arms around him, feeling so steady fast and _sure_ that they were all _wrong_. He wasn’t as smart, or clever, or bright as any of them but he _knew_ this. He was _slow,_ but he got there faster than the rest, “We’ll never be safe again.”

“Steve, you can’t think like that.”

He thought of Jonathan as the song changed, he thought _should I stay or should I go?_

He thought about how he had raised an eyebrow at that song on the mix tape that Nancy made him about _them_ and how her voice had got whiny and her cheeks red, and she said, _‘Ugh, it’s just – Jonathan showed me this song and I just like it, okay? I wanted to put it on the tape.’_

And, he thought that maybe he should have taken the hint.

The more he listened to the mix tape, the more that he thought that it was a love letter to Jonathan Byers and the more that he realized how expendable he was to Nancy, how expendable he was to _all_ of them.

And, he got it.

They don’t need _evidence_ to back up what he knew was right. They didn’t need anything because he already _told_ them that he’d never say anything, so they didn’t _need_ him. He was expendable and stupid, and didn’t actually really know anything anyways.

They were going to sell him out.

“Hey,” He said, ignoring the hurt in his chest and his wrist. “What are people saying about me?”

“What?”

“What… what are the rumors about me?”

Dustin’s eyes squinted at the change in the topic, “Steve, you don’t want to know the answer to that. Trust me.”

“Because I always ask questions that I have no fucking intention of getting the answers to all the time,” Steve snapped harsher than he needed or wanted to. “C’mon, dipshit. Just tell me.”

“Currently, some people think that you’re dead and that your parents are coving it up,” Dustin finally told him, a tired sigh already in his voice. “Some people think that Tommy actually did it, some think that Billy did. Some people think that you did it because of Nancy.”

“That’s all?”

“Some think that you went off the deep end.”

Well, sometimes rumors hit the nail on the head.

 

Steve saw Dustin out with a numbness that felt receding, but receding into nothing. He felt like he’d somehow advantaged from feeling world-weary exhaustion to some kind of new advantaged level of tired, the kind that came with heartache, and traitor parents, and the knowledge that the one group of people that were supposed to stand with him were liars.

He stood there numbly as Claudia waved from her car and Dustin disappeared into its’ warmth, and he told his mother that he couldn’t talk today. He told her that he felt tired, and woozy, and he just wanted to sleep.

And, the radio played on.

If this was a movie than the hair on the back of Steve’s neck and on the back of his arms would stood on end as he walked into his room, he would’ve sensed danger. His heart would have dropped in beat and his breathing would slide into something slow and even, and ready.

Everything would slow to a point, a beat, and the pulse of blood in his ears.

If this was a movie than his pupils would go wide in a zoomed in shot, his legs would ache to run. If this was a movie than his gaze would pan with the camera up ratty old snow-sodden boots, drag up, up, up the slopes of crossed ankles and tight blue jeans all the way up to the flashy belt and the gripped hand against the window sill.

If this was a movie than his gaze would follow the camera up the open shirt and jean jacket thrown over, following up the lopsided stitches and the bulging arms beneath, up stiff shoulders and a bruised jaw, to swollen skin and blue eyes.

He would have breathed out in a movie, something quippy and ultra-cool, smooth as hell but he said nothing

He’d notice everything in sections of building suspense and appropriate haunted music, not the synthesized tune of a song that neither he nor Nancy even liked. The radio played, _sometimes I feel like I got to._

_Dun. Dun._

His mind _screamed_ that this wasn’t real. It didn’t even feel real.

_Run away. Got to_

Nothing ever hurt him in his dreams, he reminded himself.

_Dun. Dun._

This wasn’t a dream.

_Get away._

Billy Hargrove was in his room.

He was never going to be safe again.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, SORRY!
> 
> Life has been pretty hectic as of late but, woo. I'm an aunt now which is neat. We should continue further with weekly updates

The music dulled to a point.

The songs narrowed in his ears and faded to soft beats and empty choruses, like the whole world was, at once, very distant. His vision fizzled and turned black at the corners, eating up scenery until all that was left was this room, in this universe, in this moment.

Everything dwindled down until all that _was_ , was _them_.

Steve was suddenly acutely and attentively aware of himself.

He was presently aware of the way that his heart thudded low in his gut, pulsing with a dropped beat and a tight churning in his stomach, echoing down his arms and vibrated in the black stitching in his wrists. He was conscious of the way that his mouth slicked with too much saliva, filling with the taste of copper and bile, and the chalky powder of pills on his tongue.

He was aware of the tightness in his lungs with each exhale of breath, aware of way oxygen scrapped its way out of his mouth and his throat closed tight and spasmed open every time he swallowed.

He could _hear_ every ounce of his own being in a way that felt solidifying.

It was almost stupid how far he got into the room before he noticed.

His head ached with the stupidity of it all, with the start of a building migraine pulsating at the base of his skull. His skin _crawled_ with how fucking aware he was of his own exhaustion, his own pathetic and small existence, with how – real he felt, how human, how _alive_.

It was surreal how tired he was so suddenly.

He’d need a new syntax to describe it.

He was present and weighted into this moment. He was existing in this plane of existence like flowers pressed between pages and words in a script, he was _here_. In whatever hell, or purgatory, or Upside Down-adjacent universe that this was supposed to be.

He was _here_.

The keen awareness of his existence demanded his attention, demanded that he _feel_ it, see it, hear it with a consciousness that he hadn’t truly felt since that night of too many Christmas lights and burnt Demogorgon flesh.

Gone, was the dreamlike fog and the overhanging clouds that had followed him and invaded him since monsters came through the ceiling.

Gone, was the clinging cognizance of going through the motions, of _playing_ normal since he donned a sweater and a bat, and Nancy Wheeler shoved a gun into his face and prophesized, _‘it’s going to come back, you need to leave.’_

Gone, was trying too hard and ignoring too much, and living in a soft ether.

Gone, was invisibility.

He felt _seen_ for the first time in a long time, stripped of his fluff and his act, and all the goddamn hairspray that had made him so pretty, so cool. He hated it.

He didn’t know what he was supposed to do in this moment.

In this universe. In this room.

He felt like he should laugh something manically and painfully crazed, that he should maybe burst into tears and sob his eyes out. He felt like he was supposed to fall to his knees and pray to gods that had let him down, clasp his hands together and give thanks to blue eyes for seeing him, cover his face and beg for mercy, for quick ending, to be returned unseen back to the ether.

He didn’t know.

He didn’t know if he was expected to stand there and be tall, be stoic, be dead in all the ways that he was always feeling.

He didn’t know how to _react_ to this because he truly didn’t know which version of Steve Harrington he was supposed to be. He couldn’t don the crown and hold his head high, couldn’t be King Steve. He couldn’t be Nancy’s boyfriend, or the babysitter, or the monster fighter, or the handsome son.

He was _nobody_. He was _nothing_.

He didn’t know if this – this person he was, this Steve Harrington with a cracked imperfect mask and tired eyes, and messy hair and stitches in his skin was the kind of man that stood there and took whatever Billy came to throw at him with nothing more than a clenched jaw and dead eyes. He didn’t know if he was the type to crumble.

He didn’t know if he was supposed to give up, but _Jesus._

He wanted to give up. He wanted to give in.

He wanted to concede, and lay down, and be fucking _done_.

His eyes fluttered down into a blink, shuddering away from a piercing blue gaze and into a pitch black just to be assaulted with bright and sudden snapshots of movies that he didn’t think he even _liked_ anymore.

His mind shook violently and tore into itself, looking for placement that wasn’t _this_ moment, _this_ universe, _this_ room. His mind searched for guidance and a role to play because he didn’t know who _he_ was, didn’t know what this was, didn’t know how to respond to any of this.

His mind felt scratchy and old, and argyle at its corners in the way that his grandmother’s carpet had always been. It rubbed against the back of his eyes and left phantom tickles on the palms of his clenched hands. It whispered _mimmo_ and jingled rows of thin metal bracelets in his ears.

His mind settled on _home_ , got lost in the rough scent of leather and boozy alcohol, in the feeling of James Dean’s weighty voice on the back of his neck as he quoted softly, _I don’t know what to do anymore, except maybe die._

His mind whispered in pretty drunk vowels and the aloof devastation of his grandmother’s movie collection, _you say one thing, he says another, and everybody changes back again._

Steve blinked.

A flash of lightning blue, a flash of plaid, and then a welcomed darkness.

His grandmother’s thin arms and jingling bracelets, and the soft Italian ways that she could repeat the words of old Hollywood stars at every occasion faded into dark oceans to be lost again. His mind tumbled in turbulent seas, through old pointless memories, and cut scenes, and movies that he’d seen. Pressing forward.

The scratchy red carpet of his childhood changed to itchy hotel hallways, narrowing and suffocating, and rushing floods of red blood oceans. His mind washed clean with metal claws in soap water, and witty one-liners, with wild stabs on dark nights and watchful eyes in thin plastic masks.

He forced himself to breathe in, breathe out.

His mind went blank.

He didn’t know what movie this was supposed to _be_ anymore.

Billy Hargrove had always been the stalking piano keys of the Halloween instrumental, the haunting tune that lurked over his shoulder and just out of sight, watching. Faint, but always there, always relentless, always _distant_ with a lingering promise of destruction.

He was Michael Myers in humid plastic rubber, in flesh and blood, and an unrelenting stalking presence. He was danger beneath skin, death in clenched fist, a monster that took _patient_ steps and kept a mind-numbing distance.

He was a knife’s edge on dark nights, and Steve never saw it until it was too late.

Billy was Freddy Kruger in his nightmares, in his dreams, in his room during whatever the fuck this actually _was_. He was the killer behind the shower curtain, lurking unseen with loud crashing cymbals and screeching violins, the breath before _slicing_ frenzied madness.

He was every horrible creature in every horror movie that Steve would die first in. He was the masked immortal killer to all of Steve’s dumb babysitter tropes, to every useless boyfriend with shoes that he’d fit too well, to all his asshole character traits and his off-scene deaths.

Billy was a promise and a threat, and never-ending _dread_.

_I’m going to fucking kill you, Harrington._

Billy was _Jaws_ at the core of it, and Steve was the death of an uncredited extra even in his own life. He didn’t _listen_. He was stupidly and dumbly deaf to the warning, missing the soft drawn out rumble of _duh-nnnn, duh-nnn, duh-nn._

Steve had taken step, after step, after step into a trap, into an overused trope.

He had watched Mrs. Henderson drive off with Dustin and he had lied to his own mother’s face, walking up the stairs lost in his own spiraling thoughts to an unheard soundtrack. He was so wrapped up in his own dumb problems that he missed the heeded warning of the ever present increasing tempo. _Duh-n, duh-n, duh-n._

Like blood dropping into water and a fin cutting the ocean surface, he missed every warning until it was too damn late. It was literally fucking _ridiculous_ how far he got into the room without sensing danger, without his mind screaming _get out, get out, get out_ to him.

He was an _idiot_.

Billy Hargrove was a Demogorgon in the worst possible ways, blood thirsty and smiling, and filled of flesh and sharp pointed teeth, and Steve didn’t _notice_ him until after the door clicked shut. He had walked into this room, all the way over to his desk, and he didn’t notice that the worst of all creatures had crawled in through the walls, was _here_ , was in his room with him.

Steve was never going to be safe here again.

He hopes that Billy killed him this time.

His mind surged forward with that thought so readily and needless that it practically _bit_ him, digging down sharp into his flesh with _want_ and then whispering the sweet, sweet promise of a white embrace, _it’s not a goddamn joke. I’m going to fucking murder you._

 _Do it_ , his mind encouraged, begged, dared, taunted. The words worked their way onto his tongue and pressed against his teeth with the _need_ to be spilled. He swallowed hard. _Shut up_.

This – _Billy._

 _Billy Hargrove_ , standing in his room in this very real moment.

Billy pushed himself effortlessly from his lean against the windowsill like a painting come to life and took step, after step, after step in snow-sloppy boots towards Steve. He shed his jean jacket off his shoulders like some misremembered recreation of a dream and dropped it on the bed when there were only feet left between them.

Steve felt like he was squished between Billy’s wet shoe and like the span of an relentless lost ocean had poured between them, and Steve felt abundantly _here_.

He stood statuesque and still, and felt as if he could drown in the rising waters and the crushing weight.

He could run, he told himself absently.

He could run and make it to the door before Billy could even _think_ to surge across oceans to stop him. He made it yards across the junk yard with Demo-dogs hot on his heels before so, he could make it to the door.

He could throw it open and scream loudly. He could burst into tears or tear open his stitches. He could make Billy really _scared_ of being in the same room as him, could make him regret stepping foot in here. He could talk all dead and empty, and force him to take steps backwards.

He didn’t do anything because he had nothing to lose here.

He didn’t even more an inch.

Billy Hargrove was in his room. He was _here_ and there was nothing Steve could do about the deteriorating distance between them. He _hated_ it.

He hated it so fucking much.

He didn’t _want_ this so, of fucking course, it was what he got.

He felt some flicker of pointless _loathing_ at the way that Billy’s hands were scabbed at the knuckles and decorated bruises with obnoxious cheap rings. He hated how those rings caused the same stupid rise of banal jealousy that he felt every time he saw the rows of elegant jewelry decorating his mother’s dainty hands.

He couldn’t stop the way that his mind wondered bitterly, in the same way that he always wondered who it was that his mother thought was so much more important than her own son, if Billy found a better punching bag to replace him with. He didn’t even know why he _cared_ if he had.

It was pathetically stupid.

He hated the fake ease of tense muscles set high in Billy’s shoulders, how his dirty fingernails tapped against his ugly belt buckle in a way that could have been nerves but was definitely just _annoying_. He hated the way that his unlit cigarette dangled between a busted lip, pink and damp at the end from a cut that hadn’t quite healed.

He hated Billy’s _presence,_ and all that it meant and didn’t mean.

He hated the _want_ that wormed into his chest when standing in Billy’s company, how it dragged up this desire for that night in November to had ended differently, ended deadly.

He hated how _badly_ he wanted it, wanted bloody fists and menacing words, wanted to feel alive in the worst ways, hated how it tasted of cigarettes and too much cologne on his tongue. He hated the desperation dredged up for that white embrace, for pain and fists, destruction and death, for mutual satisfaction.

He hated that Billy seemed to _know_ what he wanted, that he was able to read him and see him in a way that no one had _cared_ to and still, he never gave it to him.

He hated this moment that had him rooted to the floor.

The tension and the stalled paused where words should have been – where _‘am I dreaming, Harrington, or is that you?’_ and _‘yeah, it’s me. Don’t cream your pants’_ should have been – stood stagnant and still in the air. Nothing moved except the ant crawling way that Steve’s skin buzzed and the _tap, tap, tap_ of Billy’s fingernails against the metal of his buckle.

Steve could almost _hear_ the words play out as they should, following the script of a different moment, different place, different lifetime like this was nothing more than a cheap replication of that night in November – _amigo_.

All of this felt so – heady. It felt ridiculous, and weird, and really fucking stupid.

Jesus, this was so _dumb_.

Maybe Steve should have laughed.

Maybe he should have laughed so hard that he bawled his eyes out just to cover all his bases because this was – this was tedious.

When world ending apocalypses and faceless crawling nightmares were as far behind a locked gate as they were, and the only thing in Hawkins that was truly at risk of falling to pieces was _him_ , all of this just felt _done_. Old hat.

He’d been there, he’d done that.

He’d lived to tell the tale.

This needless tension, and overdramatic melodrama, and _plaid_ just felt pointless. It felt stupid, like a cheap ripped off attempt at recreating the magic of an iconic moment.

But this was… this was a knocked off replication in the shittiest way.

Steve should voice that fact.

He should tell Billy to just get the fuck out because he already _knew_ that wishes don’t come true and that no one ever kept their promises. He already knew that all Billy was going to do was push him up closer to the edge and then do nothing to push him over it.

He’d given up on ever going round two, on a showdown of epic destruction, on the fight that would never actually come.

He should tell him that he was _done_. Just done.

He knew what all of this looked like from an outside prospective, what it _sounded_ like. He knew what it looked like and sounded like to the people that should know better, that should trust him and believe him, but didn’t. It was pointless to try to explain anything anymore.

He knew what _he_ looked like and what everybody must’ve thought that they knew about what happened with him. He was _tired_ , and all of this felt too real, and he didn’t fucking want to do this right now, or ever.

He opened his mouth but what came out if it sounded upside fucking down with how much it didn’t sound like it came from him. It was too soft and deafeningly loud, and echoed in a hollow that went on forever as he fumbled through words like he didn’t know them, “Uh… so, uh, what – what are you, uh, doing here?”

Steve watched the involuntary way that Billy’s head rocked back as he leaned onto his heels, as if the stumbled question had landed hard with the force of a slap. He wondered what it was that Billy saw in him that was so fucking horrifying.

He’d seen this look pass onto Billy’s face before.

He’d watch that look waver onto his face in the parking lot, and the alleyway, and the boy’s locker room, this instinctive way that Billy would fall back away from him. His grip would loosen and his eyes would dim. His mouth would pull down from his smirk and then straighten into a tight nothing.

Everything would even out, and they’d pretend that it didn’t happen, but it had.

Steve wondered what it was that Billy saw that brought uncertainty wavering into his confidence, that furrowed the space between his brows and stripped down his aggression to a soft confusion. He wondered what it was that knocked him so off kilter.

Steve didn’t get it.

“I don’t do hospitals.”

He blinked. _What?_

Billy’s voice echoed like a beat that missed its cue, coming out fast and trailing off slow at the end like an aborted attempt to make up for the silence. It was a non-sequitur that fell flat in the space between them.

He added, “Seen enough people die in ‘em.”

Steve watched the bob of his cigarette with each word said, feeling like he could taste the nicotine on his tongue. He wondered if that meant that he was asleep, that maybe he was still at the hospital.

Maybe he was dead. Still dying in the school parking lot.

It felt too real, felt surreal.

He _was_ tired, “I didn’t die though.”

Billy’s expression was clear and unimpressed, stating in the silent movie that played across his lips, _‘you look like you’ve been dead for years, pretty boy.’_

It was not what he chose to vocalize but it was a message that Steve got, that solidified the decision that none of this really mattered. Billy thought the same as everybody else, and why shouldn’t he?

He didn’t know of monsters and Demogorgons, and spies listening through the walls. He didn’t know _anything,_ so he wouldn’t believe the truth.

Billy took the pink tipped cigarette from between his lips and placed it behind his ear, breathing out, “I don’t care.”

There was no reason for anybody to pretend to care anymore and there was no one that vocalized as often and as loud as Billy about the fact that they could care any less about Steve. So yeah, Steve knew that he didn’t care.

Billy had made it pretty fucking clear since the very first moment that they met that Steve was nothing more than something pretty that he could break, that he was nothing more than a little _fun_. Steve was just a punching bag for pent up aggression and a crown not worth stealing.

It was clear, how little Billy _cared_ about anything. It was as clear as the panic that Steve still remembered in Billy’s eyes.

He remembered the way that black ran out the blue in his eyes, as his eyebrows shot into his hairline and his ever present California cool dissipated at the sight of too much blood and ruined pale wrists. He remembered the edge that crept into Billy’s voice and how it broke into agitated demands, _sit back and press that over your wrist before you fucking bleed out_.

But it didn’t matter.

 _Steve_ didn’t care either.

He shrugged, “I don’t care either.”

It was true, mostly.

It felt incredibly like _something_ in his chest that it was only _mostly_ true.

Billy’s face did that thing again, where all the sharp corners and knife-point edges rusted and dulled, and worry chased his smirk into a downward curve. Then it was gone again.

And they pretended that nothing happened.

There were bruises on Billy’s face, taunt purple-blue splotches that greened and yellowed at their corners, shifting over swollen skin in a telegraph of emotions. They spelled out all the confusion, and fear, and the _something_ that was kind of like concern and kind of like understanding.

Steve didn’t like them.

Billy’s tongue flickered over the cut like he didn’t want it to heal just yet, like it was just another thing that he had to pick at until it was broken and bleeding. Marred blue and purple pulled at fine lines as his lips curled back up into its usual smirk – like Billy was always thinking of something so much better than the moment that he was in.

His collar laid open over a ring of smudgy purple spots on his neck, big and mean, and tell of a cold kind of anger. Steve wondered if there were more bruises on him, feeling distinctly response for them.

Billy pulled uncomfortable at his shirt when he noticed Steve noticing, and shifted back another step.

Steve asked again, “What are you doing here?”

He didn’t expect an answer because Billy wasn’t a _giving_ person, because Steve wasn’t really a person, because they’d played this song and dance so many times that it hardly mattered anymore. Billy didn’t answer him.

He pulled at his shirt again and took another step back, hefting up his heavy backpack from where it was dropped unseen on the other side of the bed. His face masked a grimace as he dropped it onto the bed.

Steve squinted confused and wondered absently if Hopper was the reason for the bruises, and Billy snapped defensively, “Got the shit that you need to make up from your teachers, not that anybody thinks that you’re actually going to come back. You’re welcome.”

“What?”

Steve’s eyes flickered up to blue eyes and strayed to the bruise at his temple. Billy shifted under the gaze because Steve was staring, because Steve wasn’t talking, because Steve shouldn’t _have_ to talk to Billy or care that he was uncomfortable.

Billy broke into his room to – to give him homework.

Who does that?

Billy’s tongue swept over his lip again, tonguing at the cut before he said, “Got in a fight. Other’s guy’s walkin’ with half his teeth so fuck off about it.”

Steve didn’t think that was true, but he said, “Okay.”

Billy’s mouth pulled down into a frown again, something angry instead of uncomfortable like Steve did something wrong by not believing a clear lie. Maybe he was supposed to ask about the fight.

Maybe Billy wanted someone to ask about the bruises, wanted _Steve_ to ask so he could say that it was Hopper that did it. Maybe the party was keeping up their pretenses that they weren’t betraying him, or maybe Billy wanted Steve to fix his problems.

Steve was never good at fixing anything, so he didn’t ask.

He felt tired of being real.

“There’s a project in English due at the end of next week,” Billy said, letting his voice spill into the space in the most aggressive, put out way possible. “You lucked out, Terracini is a lazy bitch and put us in groups based on the attendance role and you got paired with me.”

“I did all this shit back in Cali last year, so you lucked out there too,” He continued. “Planning to just rewrite some shit and call it quits. You can keep sitting up here in your castle and mope around about your sorry existence all day, don’t care.”

Steve wondered what it must be like to be so angry all the time, wondered if it burnt with the same heat that lived in his words. He wondered if Billy ever got tired of it, wondered what it felt like to be so full of something to the point that it burst and sparked with every movement made.

Steve only ever felt tired these days. He felt dead and ghostly, and invisible, and betrayed these days. He felt sad a lot but in the way that just felt hollowing and empty.

He wondered if Billy ever felt hollow, if that was the draw and pull that kept colliding them together. He wondered if there was ever an emptiness within him and if he was afraid of it, if that was the reason that he was so dead set on holding onto this anger.

In the week that followed Billy nearly killing him on the Byer’s floor, he had nearly ceased to exist in Steve’s worldview.

They had moved around each other awkwardly, not know where they stood or how they stood there. When Billy wasn’t a menace, wasn’t anything more than a guy on the team that was riding his ass during practice then he was nothing. He didn’t exist in Steve’s life if he wasn’t a monster, a ghost, a shark.

Steve wondered if that burst of unrelenting violence had drained the anger from Billy’s bones, if it left him with the same hollowness that lived inside of him. He wondered if that was why Billy refused to give into how much he wanted to destroy him because there would be – _what_ left?

Billy’s sole focus in Hawkins seemed to be to terrorize Steve and to drive like a maniac. If he killed Steve than what was the point in him?

He was poorly developed, Steve thought absently.

He had no drive, no motivations, no real reason to be the antagonist to Steve’s – Steve’s _side character_. There wasn’t a Billy if there wasn’t a Steve, and that wasn’t right.

This shitty existence needed better writers.

Steve thought about asking Billy why he was even here and how he even got through his parents when they were gatekeeping the front door. He thought about asking but then he dismissed it, it didn’t feel like a question that should be asked.

The silence was palpable in the room and neither of them had the words to fill it, neither of them truly had anything. Neither of them actually mattered.

In Steve’s head, that night in November played through again. _What are you doing here, amigo? Could ask you the same thing, amigo._

And the tape switched to the next song.

Steve absently thought about telling Billy about how the tape that populated this moment with a horrible soundtrack of inane top forties songs had been made by Nancy. Eighteen songs for his eighteenth birthday.

Eighteen songs that reminded her of him.

Eighteen songs that should mean _something._

He thought about telling Billy how he wasn’t as delusional, or thick, or stupid as people thought that he was, he was just slow. So, he knew that after three songs, Nancy struggled to fill the tape because they didn’t really know each other, because they were pretty shitty at listening, because they never actually _talked_ about anything that mattered.

He wanted to tell him that if you listened to something long enough, you could convince yourself that it had meaning.

He thought about blurting out to Billy Hargrove, of all fucking monsters, that he felt like nothing more than a ghost to everybody, but to him. He thought about asking why it was that Billy could see him, thought to ask why he was the only one looking and why he looked scared of what he saw.

He thought to ask why it felt like he was dead and dying, and that the only person that could see it was him. He wanted to know, he _needed_ to know.

He didn’t ask.

He didn’t bother to say anything because explaining to the guy that tormented him, that broke his face and his reputation, and nearly killed him dead was never going to understand. He was never going to care.

There was _no one_ to tell that he didn’t feel any different after that day in the parking lot, that he had felt scared then and felt pain, and he felt lost in the hospital but there wasn’t a _difference_. He always felt like that nowadays.

He used to have Nancy, used to have Tommy, used to have Carol.

Now, he had Billy Hargrove in his room and he still felt alone.

He wasn’t going to tell Billy that he didn’t feel any better after his apparent suicide attempt, that he didn’t feel worse, he didn’t _feel_ anything. If he didn’t have black stitches pulling at his skin than he would have forgotten that it even happened.

He wanted to ask Billy that if he didn’t remember something and no one was acknowledging what really truly happened, then did it matter that he wasn’t trying to kill himself?

For a brief and bright second, he thought about telling him about the spies, and the Demogorgons, and what that night in November had really been about. He thought about spilling every dark secret that he had, tell him, tell _someone_ that everybody picked him to be the scapegoat before he was the next missing person’s case. He dismissed the thought.

He pinched the bright of his nose and pulled down his hoodie sleeves before saying, “It didn’t happen for the reasons that you think, okay? That’s why you’re here and it’s – what you think was happening, didn’t happen.”

“Oh?” Billy said harshly, sarcastically. “Oh, _man_. I guess that I just misunderstood your goddamn intentions when you were _bleeding out_ in my car.”

“Yeah,” Steve said. “You did.”

“Yeah,” Billy repeated, crossing his arms and nodding. “Yeah, you’re right. Must be, because there is no way that your dumbass invited me to your goddamn suicide, right? No, sorry, right, you’re _assisted_ suicide.”

Steve opened his mouth, but Billy continued, “Do you know how much fucking trouble you’ve caused me? There were police at my door, asshole.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry doesn’t fucking do anything for me.”

“I told – Hopper knows that you had nothing to do with it. I never said that you did,” Steve told him. “People just – I _told_ you, they’re making assumptions when they don’t even know half the facts, and I’m-“

“Fucking tell me, Harrington,” Billy demanded. “Seriously, pretty boy, fucking _try_. Tell me what you were doing then? Slicing your wrist for _fun_?”

 _Yes_ , he thought to say.

 _There were microchips in my skin_ , he wanted to say.

 _You won’t understand,_ he needed to say

He sucked in a harsh breath.

 _I don’t want to die,_ he didn’t say.

 _I do,_ he didn’t say. _I don’t._

 _I messed up_.

“I deserve some answers.”

Steve swallowed down everything that was unsaid, letting the words fall down deep and die in an endless void. There wasn’t a point in saying anything because Steve didn’t _owe_ Billy anything.

No one deserved anything.

Friends don’t lie to each other. Friends don’t let other friends go through things alone. Friends don’t sell each other out to the government, but they weren’t friends. Steve didn’t have _friends_.

He only really had Billy, and Billy wasn’t his friend.

He shrugged his shoulders and lied lamely, “I was trying to scare you.”

“By attempting suicide?”

“Go big or go home, right?”

There was a beat and then a melody, and Steve thought that it was really fucking hilarious that Nancy thought to put _Don’t You Want Me_ on this tape. When he thought about it, he could still hear her weak justification that it was played at a party that they went to once, that it was playing in the car on one of their dates.

He thought that Billy would find it hilarious that a song about stalking ended up on a tape for _his_ birthday when Nancy left him for her stalker. Hilarious.

He thought about telling him about it, but they weren’t friends and Billy looked like someone struck a match against his anger. He looked like a house fire, Steve found it oddly warming.

The ocean between them dried up in drought and the floor creaked with weight as Billy stepped forward, closing the gap between them. His movements were jagged, thick with anger, and Steve didn’t move until he was forced to.

The edge of his deck hit Steve mid-thigh and Billy pressed forward with a hand wrapped tight in his collar, making him bend back at an uncomfortable angle, “Thought we’ve been through this, pretty boy. It doesn’t work out for you when you lie to me.”

Steve kind of wanted to laugh.

At the song, at this moment, at the cheap reused dialog.

 _God_ , he hated all of this.

It would be a waste of his energy and time to wish that Billy would finally take that plunge over the edge, or he’d fucking break Steve’s spine, or his soul, or his life down into the brittle existence that it was. It was pointless to hope that Billy would be anything other than disappointing.

This was just a show. It was an act.

Billy knew it too.

Steve could see it in his eyes as realization dawned on him that they’re too far passed to keep repeating this old dialogue. He could see the moment that Billy realized that he wasn’t _needed_. Steve wasn’t afraid of him, didn’t want the destruction that his hands had to offer, didn’t expect it anymore.

Billy had nothing to give to him thus, he stopped existing in Steve’s world

They were opposite sides of a useless coin.

It was fucking _hilarious._

A grin passed onto Steve’s face, something that must’ve been terrifying and dead because Billy’s expression wavered, and he was stepping back again. That horrible ocean poured back between their feet, and Steve could have laughed. He had nothing to _lose_.

He wasn’t King Steve. He wasn’t Steve Harrington.

He was barely _Steve_.

He was going to die. He was going to be sold out by the party. He was not going to _ever_ be killed by Billy. He’d be taken out by spies sooner or later.

What was the fucking _point_ anymore?

What was the point in this?

Steve’s grin felt _manic_ , “Why don’t you remind me again?”

Billy’s lips parted around words that did not come and then he closed his mouth. He repeated the action twice, finding the words only for them to die on his lips when there was a knock at the door, “Stevie?”

 

His mother wanted to talk to him about pills, and arrangements, and therapy, and all this stuff that Steve just couldn’t care about right now. She wanted to talk about all this stuff that was essentially just a waste of money, stuff that was never going to help him, or save him, or matter when Reagan killed him.

They stood in the hallway halfway between his bedroom and her office, and she looked – less than perfect. He wouldn’t have even noticed the way her hair frizzed on the ends or the smug of ink on her hands if she hadn’t always looked perfect.

He felt suddenly like he just learned that Santa wasn’t real, like he was snapping awake as his nanny got tangled in his tooth fairy trap. He felt like the magic of his mother had died and they were seeing each other for the first time. It was weird.

It was weird to be standing barefoot in the hallway while his mother talked about routines and schedules, and his father was at the bottom of the stairs listening to read messages on the answering machine. This somehow felt less real than Billy Hargrove standing in his room.

The answering machine buzzed to life with a monotone voice, _Four read messages._

Message one.

_Helloooo, again. It’s Cynthia with the party planning committee. I was just calling to confirm that you’ll still be attending the Mayor’s charity ball next week? Call me back as soon as you-“_

Message two.

_James, it’s Randy. Call me back, we need to get ahead of this thing before-_

Message three.

_It’s Randy again. I know that you’ve got a lot going on but when you can, call me back. I know this is a delicate time, but we need to think of the ramifications, and prepare for a drop in sales from-_

Message four.

_Hello. This is Leslie Dylan on behalf of the Indiana State University’s administration office. We haven’t heard back in regards to scheduling a date to-_

There was a soul leaving feeling warping itself into Steve’s body, this _ripping_ feeling like he was parting with something important. He was returning to his unseen ether.

They were going through motions that they didn’t need to.

All of this felt unnecessary, words and dialogue to leave on the cutting room floor. His mother rubbed his arm at the elbow and asked sweetly like the messages weren’t being played again, “Honey, how does that sound?”

He supposed that he was supposed to care, but he couldn’t.

He wanted to tell her that it was too much.

He wanted to tell her that everything was building, and building, and building, but to what? Then what happened?

He killed himself?

Was that the end goal here, was that what Reagan and the spies wanted? He wanted to ask her if the plan was to drive him right up to the edge and let him jump over himself because if it was, he didn’t get it. He just didn’t.

He didn’t want to – die.

On a fundamental level of his soul and the basic levels of life, he thought, that _no one_ ever really wanted to die. No one ever killed themselves because they were _happy._

No.

 No one ever killed themselves because they were _sad_ , or angry, or tired. It was something building and heavy, and something that _snapped_. It was a hopeless realization, probably.

He thought that the people who succeed at killing themselves were people who felt like him all the time. He thought that they were probably people that _thought_ about how much easier life would be if it stopped, thought about how resting the afterlife would be, thought _‘I want this to end,’_ and _‘I wish I was dead,’_ and _‘this is never going to get better,’_ and _‘please.’_

They thought, _‘I want to be dead, but I don’t want to kill myself.’_

He thought that they were just ordinary people like he was, fucking devastated on the inside and no one could tell. He thought that they just wanted a way to get through the helplessness, and the hopelessness, and the pain, and that sometimes the only way through it all was to end it.

Dying had been scary every fucking time that it almost happened, and he was tired.

It wasn’t _fair_ that he couldn’t – it wasn’t fair that he felt like this and that no one actually cared. It wasn’t fair that he was having this conversation, that he was going to be _murdered_ by spies and not Billy Hargrove.

He doesn’t know what anybody could possibly even want from him anymore. He couldn’t see the plot of this fucking dumb as shit movie. He was just tired. He was so fucking _tired_ of pretending and fighting, and feeling this dead, and this exhausted, and this confused and hurt.

He was dumb and too fucking slow, and not smart enough to take on all of this by himself so he accepted his fate. He accepted what was going to happen so – so he would like this to _stop_.

He was so good at accepting things that happened to him, he was good at rolling with the punches and giving in to the wills of those around him. He was smart enough to know that these were just motions.

He was fucking _great_ at doing what he was told so he didn’t know why the fuck his mother was asking him for his opinion now. It wasn’t like she cared, wasn’t like she didn’t know what was happening and what will happen from now on.

She fucking sold him out to the government, she doesn’t _get_ to pretend to give a shit now.

He supposed that this was probably a test of some kind, that her big eyes and frizzy hair, and the ink on her hands were probably all _something_ for him to figure out because the government clearly never realized that he was essentially useless. He wondered how he was doing.

He wondered if they were angry about his cutting out the microchip, about their failure to get a tracker inside of him and to bug him room. He wondered if they were pissed off that they could fool Hopper and Dustin, and every-fucking-body else but they couldn’t fool him.

Steve knew that if he kept fighting that it would only hurt worse. It’d be quick when they killed him, something gentle and nice that put him to sleep instead of torture and bathtubs, and things pressed underneath his fingernails if he gave in, gave up.

He blinked and asked her, “What does lobotomize mean?”

And, she promptly shattered into tears.

She crumbled against him, pulling him into her arms and holding onto him like he would turn to dust and smoke. She petted his hair and his face, and sobbed about how he was her baby and how he was hurting, and how she never wanted that. Steve let her.

It felt awful but all he could really think while his mother was bawling so much that her mascara started to run, was how fucked up it was that Billy was in his room. He was probably listening to this.

Steve’s dead eyes met his father’s honey gold ones when he walked up the stairs, a look on his face that clearly said to his father, _help me._

That said, _I don’t know what to do._

That said, _this isn’t my fucking problem._

He took a step back as his father took a step forward, rounding the stair’s banister and taking his wife into his arms. Steve watched from the sidelines, the way that a man that never showed any emotion to him, never even pretend to care about his son, comforted his hysterical wife until she stopped sobbing, telling her, “It’ll be okay. We’ll figure this all out. All is not lost yet.”

 _All is not lost yet_ , made Steve think of his grandmother. It made him think of his first semi-serious girlfriend and how she used to _cry_ all the goddamn time about everything, and his grandmother telling him, _some people cry for the show of it. Crocodile tears, they call ‘em._  

There was a thought like a crack in the haul, and Steve had given up on ever scrubbing the dorky Star Trek shit that Dustin showed him from his mind. It pulled everything into the vastness of a void, leaving nothing until it was the only essence of his psyche left.

He could not shake it. He couldn’t fight it. It infected every thought and grew dark in his mind.

It was the black mold of thought, and it festered.

Something just… snapped. Cracked. Shattered, like everything else had been shattered. Steve felt – relieved.

This ache in his chest, the taste of betrayal on his tongue. All of this was normal, he could do this.

He laughed.

He let out this empty choking sob of a laugh that was just, fragile. It was pathetic and dead down its roots because, “This isn’t even about me. It’s not me. You’re not worried about me at _all_ , it’s – it’s your fucking book sales.”

His mother looked absolutely horrified, and Steve laughed more. It was all so played out. When all you did was smile on TV and in front of crowds for a living, a face was just a face.

It was a mask made of rice paper.

It was a lie.

“Stevie.”

“ _Steve_ ,” He stressed. “Steve. It’s Steve! It’s _always_ Steve. I fucking _hate_ Stevie. I tell you this all the time.”

“You’re hurting,” She tried that therapeutic bullshit on him. Too little, too fucking late. “You’ve had a traumatic year with the dead of your friend and-“

“Stop, just stop,” He said.

“I can’t do this,” He said, “Not right now.”

His feet felt numb when he turned around and walked back into his room, closing the door on his parents.

The radio sung, _And I ran._

It sung, _I ran so far away._

_I just ran, I ran all night and day._

And Billy was gone, _I couldn’t get away._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all the people that take time to leave kudos, comments, and subscribe. It means the world.


	23. Chapter 23

Steve woke up feeling empty.

He often woke up in the mornings that followed the night the world nearly ended with an emptiness hollowed inside of him, with this new found fragility to his bones, and his skin, and his mind. He woke up exhausted beyond belief, feeling weak and powerless, and fearing that he would crumble apart under the weight of gravity, but this was something different. This was more.

This was a new side of vacancy, a new kind of empty.

If emptiness had been a twenty-sided dice than Steve had woken up that morning feeling like he had rolled a twenty, or a one, or whatever. He couldn’t remember what Dustin had said meant what.

It wasn’t even that he _slept_ , because he hadn’t.

He had closed his eyes and held his breath, and let the oxygen dwindle in his lungs until he felt like he was drowning in the slow jams of late night radio and the absence that Billy left. He felt that he had returned to an ether, but he was not comforted by it. Just lost.

He had laid under heavy comforters and plaid wallpaper, suffocating beneath the roof of a childhood home that never felt like one. He let the thoughts of monsters and Billy, and pools and blood, and spies that would kill him lap up over him and seep into his skin. He let it infect his paranoia and freeze his brain, but he didn’t sleep.

He had spent the night listening unwittingly through the walls as his mother calmed herself down and worked herself back up until she broke down into tears, _again_. He listened to all her sobs and her cries, and her loud blubbering weeping about her _baby_.

He listened to this cycle of ups and downs, and tears, and crying as it looped, and looped, and looped until Steve felt maddened by it. He felt crazed, and smothered, and _angry_ because it was offensive that she thought that he was going to fall for the dramatized rendition of a concerned mother. _Traitor_.

It was a show that was put on for an audience of one, and the audience was fucking _tired_. The audience wanted her to shut up, to go _away_.

Steve had stayed awake and watched the digits on his clock tick by, and he longed for the quick-acting effects of Karen Wheeler’s blue sleeping pills. He listened. He couldn’t _not_ listen.

He had no choice but to listen, for _hours_ that stretched late into the night, as his father paced the hallway and down the stairs, listened to the messages played on the answering machine half a dozen times. He listened to the feet that had crept up his door, that no longer locked, and then receded like ocean tides.

He had listened with mind-numbing _apathy_ as his mother cried and his father tried to comfort her with words that sounded unnatural coming from his indifferent mouth. He listened as his father tried to reason with her hysterics, as he tried to explain in too many details why none of this fell back on her. None of what happened reflected negatively on her.

Steve spent the first night back in the home of his childhood, feeling lonely, and drowned, and suffocated in the notion that there was no _point_ to him being alive anymore. It was his first night home from the hospital, where they all thought he tried to _kill_ himself, listening to his father place the blame for _everything_ onto him.

It was so fucking typical that Steve could have laughed.

He could have fucking cried.

He spent the night listening to voices canter into high crescendos of shrill hysterics and frustrated fits, and then nosedive into long intense silences. He listened as tears and reasoning became harsh words, and harsher accusations about the other’s failed parenting, and then excuses.

He listened to them recuse themselves from blame.

It was Steve’s fault. It always was.

_He’s always been rash…_

_He doesn’t think things through…_

_He does it for attention..._

_I swear, he got the dramatics from your mother…_

_Don’t start with that now, Angela, I swear…_

Steve had sighed and rolled onto his back, staring up at his ceiling while trying to remember when he took down all his glow in the dark stars, and why. He waited for all the allegations and excuses to turn to a declaration of what all of this really was, _bullshit, bullshit, bullshit._

It never did.

The words just turned to whispers and the light disappeared out from under his door. Everything got quiet and then everything became nothing, and then they went to bed.

Steve didn’t sleep that night.

He had just closed his eyes, but somewhere along the way, he was hollowed.

It was an emptier empty that he opened his eyes to, a void inside of a void inside of a black hole. He had no idea what to do with any of it.

He didn’t even think that there was something he _could_ do with it, with what he had become. He wondered what King Steve would do, and then dismissed it.

King Steve died the way that all kings died.

Without relevance.

Steve opened his eyes in the morning light, but the day did not feel new. It didn’t feel old. It didn’t feel like _anything_ at all.

It was like time ceased to exist, or he did.

Either way, it didn’t really matter.

All that he had built up inside of him the night before. All the righteous and indignity anger, the angry acceptance that he was going to be killed, the fucking betrayal, and all that dangerous boiling apathy when talking to Billy and his parents. It drained away.

All the little breaks in his chest that had cracked, and oozed, and _filled_ him up with something warm had shriveled up. It must have drained out of him without him noticing, must have dried up because he felt –

In the light through the windows, he felt pathetic.

He felt tired, and worn out, and – empty.

He felt like a fucking failure with no fucking follow through. He felt like an idiot that couldn’t even kill himself correctly, and then he didn’t even feel that. Just empty.

Otherworldly numb.

His eyes drifted absently to the door and the noise behind it that had snapped him back into his own reality. His voice cracked, “I’m a _wake._ ”

The doorknob stopped turning midway and held the same position as the person on the other side of the doors shifted on their feet, the floor creaking beneath them. The knob was released and then the footsteps retreated back down the hall.

Steve breathed out.

He already knew how this day was going to play out if he left his room and he wasn’t in any mood to jumpstart it. It was predictable.

Nothing ever really changed, nothing ever _mattered_ or made a difference. Steve had no impact on his own life, much less on someone else’s. He’d _accepted_ it.

He didn’t fucking care anymore.

If he had no impact on the world around him than it didn’t matter if he went to breakfast, and it didn’t matter if he got out bed, or if he went to sleep, or if he died. It didn’t matter if he did anything at all.

He knew how everything was going to go because he lived in a fucking predictable _boring_ ass script and it was _always_ the same. He was living a fucking tv rerun.

A deep voice from the bottom of the stairs called, “Steven, breakfast. Let’s go. Now.”

Steve sighed.

He was going to go downstairs for breakfast, and it would be like _every_ breakfast. It would be awkward pauses and burnt toast, questions that no one cared about, and undercooked eggs or pancakes with raw centers.

They wouldn’t acknowledge last night or anything that was said in the same way that his parents failed to acknowledge anything that they deemed a tantrum, or teen angst, or _him_. It’d be just the same as the bruises on his face and the medical bill in the mail.

It was going to be exactly like how they didn’t acknowledge his dead eyes, or his panic attacks, or all the obvious signs that he _wasn’t_ okay. It would be exactly the same as how they were when his grandmother died, when no one had shed a fucking tear and they already had their bags packed for the next New York conference before they even put her in the ground.

They’d just pretend like everything was normal.

It was a fucking Sear’s catalogue life.

It was paper thin and fucking _hollowing._

And then it would repeat again, and again, and again. It had been a _day_ and it already felt akin to a kind of prison, one that Steve had never known. His parents were just, _there_.

All the time.

They woke him up this morning even though he wasn’t actually asleep, even despite the fact that the only person to bring up school was Billy. They were in the kitchen where he knew that they’d be, pushing breakfast that he didn’t want onto him and pointless pleasantries that meant nothing.

There was talking, not to him but _at_ him, about his new psychiatrist – Dr. Bradley, who Steve had seen for a period after his grandmother died and getting out of bed had started to be hard. All Dr. Bradley had wanted to do was put him on medication.

 _So, it begun_ , he thought, sitting on a stool at the bar. They’d make him look crazy, look depressed and suicidal so no one asked any questions when he suddenly disappeared.

His mother leaned over the counter in front of him and told him with her fake-kind voice and her puffy eyes that she would take him to his first appointment. He wasn’t allowed to have his car.

His mother petted down his hair and explained in careful words, “It’s a precaution, just for right now, sweetheart. Surely, you can understand why we would be worried about that, right, Steve?”

“Yeah, Ma.”

The loss of his car was not expected but it wasn’t a surprise, he understood that they needed to keep a better eye on him. His parents probably got new instructions from the spies, and anyways, they’d need to fix up their image, so they weren’t known around Hawkins as the parents that didn’t see their kid was suicidal.

Even though, he was never suicidal.

He had just wanted to die, there was a difference.

All of this was just a production. They were going through the motions that were expected of them and pretending that all of this was normal.

It was pathetic.

A plate of greasy undercooked eggs was sat in front of him, and his mother asked the question, “How do you feel this morning, Steve?”

She was calling him Steve now, it was something.

He shrugged his shoulders. _Empty. Tired. Dead._

It was always the come down that was the worst.

The emptiness of crying. He heavy feeling of being too drunk or too sober, of being concussed. It was the aftertaste of pot, and breakups, and the Upside Down living and breathing inside of his lungs. All of this just felt – bad.

He’d used so many words to describe the level of awful that he has been feeling since they closed the gate, trying to explain it to himself using SAT buzz words and Nancy’s worn out thesaurus when all he really needed was one simple word. _Bad._

He simply felt bad.

He stabbed his fork into the yoke and watched it spill onto the plate, “I’m alright, Ma.”

“And to what value does the word _alright_ hold?” His father asked, eyes not looking up from the Sunday paper in his hands until a second and a beat passed that Steve didn’t fell. He fixed his honey gold eyes onto his son, and didn’t even _see_ him when he asked, “Steven?”

“I – what?”

“After all this commotion and your outburst last night, and how – this whole ordeal has weighed on all of us, especially on your mother, what does _alright_ mean?” His father asked. “After all words are subjective, and you’ve used these words – _fine, alright, okay, good_ , and then exacted actions to the contrary.”

Steve blinked at him. _So_?

“So, Steven, what value do your words hold,” He continued, “When they hold no weight behind them. How valuable are your words?”

Steve opened his mouth, and then closed it.

He didn’t reply, _fuck off._

He didn’t respond, _they mean more than you’d ever know._

He didn’t retort, _the same as they always fucking meant._

He didn’t say, _nothing to you._

_I hate you._

It was frustrating.

It was actually really fucking annoying.

His dad only ever existed in secular circles to him, like they were never anything more than overlapping galaxies, and now he was sitting at the same table at him, eating the same terrible breakfast. He was taking up the same space and air as Steve, and he was asking him _that_. It was fucking _frustrating_.

His father thought that he was so damn important, that he was _somebody_ that mattered, but he wasn’t. He was the character in the movie that got all his lines cut in post-production because they were meaningless and pointless, and they didn’t _add_ anything to the plot. There was no point in him being here.

There was no fucking point in _him_.

“Jay,” His mother said warningly.

“I don’t know,” Steve said over her in a steady dead calm. He sat down his fork and he shrugged his shoulders because his dad hated that, and he looked him in the eyes. “They probably mean just as much as yours do.”

 _Nothing at all_.

His father blinked at him and Steve took a little pride in puzzling him, turning to his mother and told her that he was going into the backyard. She told him to grab a coat and stay away from the pool.

He smiled nothing at all.

He had no plans of going anywhere near the pool.

Steve grabbed his winter coat out of the hall closet as his parents started hissing whispers at each other in the kitchen. He honestly wondered which one would be the first to break and decide to leave, to realize how better they were together when he wasn’t around. Steve slipped out the back door.

He walked out into the yard and stood where the property met the woods, and he closed his eyes. He took in a deep wintery breath and pictured Jonathan camouflaged in the dark and trees, his camera snapping. He pictured Barb at his pool, pictured her cut hand and monsters running on all four.

His hand curled around the other wrist, fingernails cutting into bandages and pressing against stitching, and he thought about bleeding. He felt like screaming, felt like ripping open his stitches.

He dropped his hand.

The sliding doors on the deck slide open and his mother called, “Steve, you need to get ready for your appointment.”

He looked at his watch, “Yeah, Ma. I’m coming.”

 

Steve could feel a pattern emerging.

He realized on the car ride to Dr. Bradley’s office that it would be today, his second day out of the hospital, that they would start setting the groundwork for a routine and schedule. Specific times of the day designated for him to exist in a certain location, in a certain way.

It would be how they kept track of him.

Steve was wearing a brand new sweater that his mother picked out for him. It was light pastel knitting with sleeves that fell over his arms, and it all served some kind of purpose.

He picked at the sleeve as she asked at a stop light, “You remember Dr. Bradley, don’t you?” 

“Yes.”

“He was not my first choice for your treatment,” She told him in a sigh when Steve looked out the window, “But he is a good doctor.”

Steve nearly snorted, _sure_.

So, today was the day that Harringtons apparently stopped getting everything they wanted? _Okay_.

“I would have preferred that Dr. Winston had made a more meaningful impact on your health so that all of this could have been avoided,” She admitted. “I – am truly horrified by the oversight that – we _all_ have made, but especially myself. I never wanted to fail you in this way, but I did not think…”

She trailed off in a sigh as the light changed and the car started moving. Steve didn’t turn his head from the window, watching the school disappear in the rearview. He wondered who picked up his car.

“The thing that you have to understand, Steve, is that I’m your mother,” She said like somehow Steve _forgot_ that. They had the same face. “Mothers have a way of – overlooking aspects of their children. It was denial, on my part. I refused to see what this really was. I didn’t – no mother wants to think that they cannot help their child.”

She sighed when she got nothing in return and tapped her fingers against the wheel like Steve always did when he was uncomfortable, “Dr. Schmitz was my first choice, but he was not taking on any new patients for the next month. He specializes in, uh, at risk teenagers, so to speak. He’s based thirty minutes out of the city.”

“Okay, Ma,” He finally said. “Dr. Bradley is fine.”

Everything was _fine_.

His mother sat in the waiting room, reading magazines while Steve sat in the office. No one said a word, and then they went home.

It was pointless, but routines were routines and this one was starting.

In the morning, they woke him up to set the routine in motion.

His parents were already at their designated spots. They were at the bathroom door when he took too long washing his hair and fixing it. There were in the kitchen with burnt toast and bad food, and questions that meant nothing. They were at the back door, calling for him to come inside, and in the waiting room at his pointless appointment.

It was kind of funny.

For all that they were _there_ , Steve was alone.

They checked off at the designated times and then left him alone, so his mother could type in her office and his father could take calls from demanding clients and make demanding calls in return. Steve suspected that he was being watched some other way but found no microphones or cameras in his room. _Not yet._

It was in the gaps in the routine that Steve fell apart, that he started thinking way too much and making dumb decisions. It was in those gaps between his appointment, and breakfast, and pills, and dinner, that Billy would make an appearance.

It was like he knew when Steve was alone, like he was a devil on Steve’s shoulder. He was a devil on delay.

He only ever appeared _after_ Steve had spent a lot of time thinking about doing something questionable, something that had the potential to be undoubtedly stupid. It was like he could _sense_ when Steve was planning on being an idiot and would appear with his electricity and sparks, and not exactly convince him not to do it.

He was just _draining_.

Billy made Steve feel alive, and seen, and real. It was exhausting to be those things. He made Steve too tired.  

Steve spent the whole night of his second day, sitting with his back against his door white trying to recreate his mother’s medicine cabinet from memory, half convinced that the only way to feel like he could breathe was to take everything in it. He spent the morning of day three, standing at the edge of the property while thinking about picking open all his stitches.

Steve had dropped his wrist and checked his watch, and he said nothing to Dr. Bradley about how he was starting to lose his relevance in every sense, to everybody. But, not to Billy Hargrove.

Billy was inexplicitly _there_ when Steve got back.

Billy’s backpack was thrown onto the bed and his feet were propped up on the desk, chewing on the end of a paintbrush that Steve hadn’t used in months. He didn’t bother to even offer Steve an explanation of how he got inside, or even a hello.

He was just _there_.

With more homework.

Billy wouldn’t let Steve keep his old work because he thought that Steve would just turn it in as his own and then get them both deep in shit. He said that Steve was the type of dumbass that would do something like that, and he wasn’t having his GPA fucked up by him.

“You actually care about your GPA?”

“Shut the fuck up and write, Harrington.”

The time suggested that Billy had skipped his study hall and his lunch period to bring Steve work to copy for their English project, so he copied it. Steve sat on the far side of the room from Billy and wrote everything down word for word.

They didn’t say much to each other until Steve felt abundantly present in the moment, felt like he was being scratched and cut up by reality, “What did you mean when you said that you’d seen a lot of people die in hospitals?”

“Damn, Harrington, didn’t know that shit needed to be spelled out,” Billy replied, head leaning back and chair protesting being propped on two legs. “Should’ve guessed, you’re pretty little head couldn’t understand the basic concept of life and death.”

“That’s not what I mean, I – you’re like, eighteen,” Steve pointed out. “How many deaths could you have possibly seen, regardless of it happening in a hospital.”

“Enough for it to be enough.”

“I thought that people in California were supposed to live longer.”

“They live right up until they die just like everywhere else, pretty boy,” Billy replied sarcastically around the end of the paintbrus. He pulled it from his lips like a cigarette and asked, “You ever use this?”

“Yeah.”

“My mom used to paint,” Billy replied, pitching forward with the weight of the words. The chair fell heavily back on all four legs, and Billy didn’t say anything else until he stuck the brush back between his teeth, “She died in a hospital.”

Billy’s shoulders slumped in the seat and he breathed in once, drawing his shoulders and his neck into his chest. He exhaled and straightened his back.

It all happened in seconds but played out in slow motion, shifting scene, to scene, to scene. Steve had been captivated by the insight, felt burnt by it like he had been staring into the sun.

Billy shrugged again, in a voice too forced to be casual, “So there you go, that was enough.”

Steve wondered what the weight of that experience must have felt like, how it bent and marred the strong shoulders of an underdeveloped character. He wondered if it weighed like the death of Barb did on his shoulders, or the safety of the kids, of the fear for what could come back.

Then Steve dismissed it.

He was never good at fixing anything anyways.

He couldn’t fix himself, and he wouldn’t fix Billy.

“I’m sorry.”

“Well, _shit_ , Harrington,” Billy scoffed, falling back into his role with effortless transition. “I wasn’t aware that _you_ killed her.”

“I – didn’t.”

“Then what exactly do you have to be sorry about?” He asked harshly. “People die.”

“I don’t know,” Steve shrugged. “The loss, I guess.”

Steve didn’t really know what to say because he’d spent his whole life chasing after the affection of his mother and then resenting her. He _had_ a mom and it felt like he didn’t because they had no idea how to coexist with one enough unless it was on some kind of stupid schedule.

He didn’t want to say, _I got a girl killed_.

He didn’t want to say, _do you still love your mom?_

He didn’t want to say, _I’m going to die soon._

He wondered if Billy’s mom had been just as mean as he was, or if Billy only got mean after she died. He wondered if Billy only got _meaner_ like how Nancy was strong before Barb’s death and even stronger after.

“My nan died when I was fifteen,” Steve settled on, cringing at it immediately as he wrote out a sentence. “She didn’t want anybody to cry at her funeral, so no one cried. I think about that a lot.”

“I didn’t come here to share, pretty boy,” Billy snorted, and then snapped his fingers. “Hurry up, I need to get back to school.”

“Oh, okay,” He nodded. “Sorry.”

On Steve’s fourth day out of the hospital, he stood on the edge of the property. He stood where the trees shook with the force of frozen rain and he counted to twenty-six.

His mother opened the sliding doors, “Steve, you’ll catch your death out here. Come inside.”

Dr. Bradley took Steve’s silence and suggested that his problems stemmed from the overactive imagination that had afflicted him as a child. Steve told him to fuck off and stormed out of his office.

They were all calling it _progress_.

It was bullshit.

His mother worked that day with paper and pen, and the tv on in the living room. She sat with her back to some talk show, angled towards the windows so she could see Steve sitting on the porch swing.

Steve knew that she was watching as he listened to rain. He dreamed of drowning and counted the seconds until she looked up to check on him.

_Twenty-eight… twenty-nine… one…_

He had maybe ten more minutes before he needed to go inside to ensure that he wouldn’t see Dustin if he came to knock on the door again.

He told his mom that he wasn’t ready to see anybody yet.

He was tired.

Steve watched vaguely as a Camaro flew down their street, flinging up all the water that the weather channel said would freeze over tonight, and then it disappeared. He let his eyes slide closed again until wet boots were stepping up onto the porch five minutes later, and Billy was there again.

Water was dripping off his thin t-shirt and his hair, and Steve kind of wanted to ask if he had parked a block away. He asked instead, “Do you think that a moment could take your soul away? Because I just – I don’t feel like I have one anymore. I think I can pinpoint the moment down.”

“I’m not looking to get metaphysical, babe.”

Steve squinted his eyes at him, “Then why are you here at all?”

“…Yeah, good point,” Billy said, tossing his cigarette out into the rain and ice. He unzipped his backpack and tossed down Steve’s makeup work on the swing next to him. “See ya around, pretty boy.”

And then Billy left. _Twenty-two… twenty-three… twenty-four…_

His mother didn’t even know that he had been there.

Like a ghost.

_One… two… three…_

Steve’s original assessment that Billy was the devil on his shoulder needed to be adjusted because it wasn’t quite right. He was somehow still Jaws, still a ghost, still _there_ and _gone_ , and bad.

He wasn’t a devil though because, in a twisted way, Steve thought that he was being saved by Billy’s appearances. Billy’s presence always left him too tired to do anything too dangerous, left him too exhausted to pry open the lock on his mother’s medicine cabinet or his father’s liquor cabinet.

He was an – _angel_.

Billy was inexplicitly there when Steve felt like he was drowning too much and for too long. He was like those miracle dolphins that showed up at shipwrecks and pulled survivors from the wreckage. It was – weird.

It was a horrible and confusing notion to view Billy as anything other than _awful_ , other than a monster with human teeth, but Steve remembered his grandmother telling him that the monsters under the bed were just angels. He remembered her telling him that angels were horrid and terrifying looking beings, and so was Billy.

Billy was somehow in his room again.

In the time that it took Steve to finish dinner and disappear back upstairs, Billy had gotten into his room. He looked pissed off, looked dangerous and angry because Steve was an _idiot_.

In a moment of clarity and self-awareness, Steve had realized how _nice_ Billy was being to him. Steve didn’t know what to do with it so he, apologized. He’d made the decision to right a wrong that he had made and called Billy’s house.

He spoke to a woman on the phone that he was pretty sure was Max’s mom and told her that he was really sorry about the misunderstanding with what had happened in the parking lot. He told her that Billy really didn’t have anything to do with anything. He didn’t want him to be in trouble for Steve’s own dumb mistakes.

“Wanna write to the papers next?” Billy asked, pacing the floor in short distances and sharp turns. “Maybe put up a fucking billboard on the interstate about how I’m some big fucking hero now. Wanna do that?”

Steve blinked from the doorway, closing the door softly, “What?”

Billy shook his head jerkily, shaking a cigarette out of his pack but didn’t light it, “What the fuck do you think that you were doing calling my house? Who fucking said that-“

“I thought that I-“

“You thought wrong as per fucking usual.”

“You said – you _said_ that I got you in trouble and the police showed up at your house. I was just trying to _help_. I-“

“I don’t fucking need your help.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Billy said, suddenly _there_ and angry, and dangerous. His eyes had a manic trapped look behind them, and his knuckles were fresh with new blood. “I don’t _expect_ you to understand shit, you’re fucking _dumb_. Clearly, clearly, you’re a corn-fed moron, worse than the rest of them. Don’t even _fucking_ call my house again, Harrington, got that? It doesn’t fucking help anything.”

Billy’s cheek was red in a way that wasn’t caused by cold or snow, and Steve felt something sink inside of him, felt guilty and wrong, “I’m sorry.”

Billy pushed him back, “It doesn’t fucking matter now.”

“I-“

“Thought that I’d be nice to you, that I’d take some fucking pity on you because you’re clearly fucked up _beyond_ repair, but then you fuck me over like that. Fuck off, Harrington,” Billy snapped at him, shoving him to the side and grabbing the handle. “Should’ve let you fucking bleed out.”

 _Take some pity,_ Steve thought and that sinking feeling felt like a fucking _knife_. He felt angry and red, and hurt, and embarrassed because _of course_ , that was what this was. What this was always going to be.

“I didn’t try to kill myself.”

“Keep telling yourself that, pretty boy,” Billy sneered, and then he was gone.

Steve breathed out harshly when the door shut.

He breathed in, and out, and in, and out, and whipped angrily at his face. He was – never any good at fixing anything.

He should never had tried.

 

It was funny how final he had thought he was being.

It was fucking _hilarious_ how determined he had been, how solid and _sure_ he had been in the finality of his own thoughts, his own words, his fucking follow through. He had walked out of the school that day with a determination of never returning to it, of being done, being gone.

He’d vowed to never step foot back into this building because he _had_ to get away, he _had_ to be done because he thought that if he stayed in Hawkins than he would get hurt. _It was true_.

It was fucking hilarious that he actually thought that he had any goddamn follow through. He couldn’t even kill himself correctly.

Steve returned to school on Friday.

There were reasons – the fear of cabin fever, his parents needing him out of the way but still watched, his failing grades – but mostly, it was being he’d used up all his excused and unexcused absences for the year and ran the risk of not being able to graduate. He didn’t particular _care_ , but his parents did, so he was back at school.

Honestly, it wasn’t even that bad.

He had been behind in all his classes, so it didn’t really matter that he was behind now. The teachers that had ignored him before still ignored him now, and the teachers that hadn’t, were overly nice and understanding, and sensitive.

The students gave him a berth so wide in the hallways that they were practically plastered up against the lockers as he passed. No one really bothered him – Nancy invited him to eat lunch with her, Tommy tried to corner him at his locker. Billy was an ever-present shadow casting shadow over him, but even he didn’t bother him.

It was all just noise.

Just sound. Just talking.

Mostly, it felt like there was a cloud around him.

He felt so unlike how he had felt when Billy appeared in his bedroom. He felt untethered to reality, felt unreal. He didn’t so much as feel as if he was removed from the situation as he felt like he had been vacuum-sealed from it. He was there, but at a distance. There was a barrier between him and everything around him, like the gate blocking the Upside Down.

His mind had fell into the thoughts and unfound pointless theories about him being sick again, about the Upside Down being an infection that because a person. He thought again about the transference of dimensions into small spaces and the way that he had inhaled inside of those tunnels.

He felt infect again, but it didn’t really matter.

He wasn’t really _here_. He didn’t really _care_.

Nothing really mattered so, Steve didn’t think that it was really his parents fault that they didn’t know how to be parents.

When the school bell rang on a blur of a day and the parking lot cleared out without him, Steve thought that it must be really hard for his parents to suddenly have to pretend to be parents. It was most likely just an oversight because his parents didn’t really think a lot about him, so they knew that he had basketball practice but didn’t consider the fact that he wasn’t expected to be there. So, they didn’t pick him up.

Steve went to practice anyways.

He had nowhere else to be.

He stood in front of the coach and looked up at him with the same tired lost expression that was returned to him. Coach didn’t know what to do with Steve either, so he shrugged his shoulders and asked if he was cleared for extracurriculars.

Steve shrugged, “Yeah.”

“Go change then.”

His mother had said that things were going to be different, that they were going to be better, but Steve wasn’t really sure how better things were going to be when he couldn’t change his shirt without everybody watching.

Tommy asked, “You playing?”

Steve didn’t respond.

Nothing was actually going to change because nothing ever _did_.

He still wasn’t allowed to have his car, or a girlfriend that loved him, or his own fucking agenda. He was being _watched_ and he hated that, and Tommy fucking _knew_ that he hated that.

He wasn’t allowed to live, or die, or exist on his own terms. It was all fucking schedules that his parents couldn’t even _remember_ to pick him up.

Honestly, he didn’t know what he wanted anymore except that more than anything, he didn’t want to be here.

He didn’t want to be anywhere.

The bandages itched, and the stitches were sore, and Steve wasn’t even put on a _team_ during scrimmages. He was going to be benched for the rest of forever so, he ran laps around the courts because it was better than calling home to be picked up. It was better than talking to his parents, or the coach, or pretending like he actually gave a fuck about basketball plays.

He ran, but he couldn’t get away from the whispering, the quiet raised concerns, and the harsh replies that King Steve truly did go the way of the mad kings. Rumor had it that Steve started to lose his mind wandering deep into the woods after Barb went missing.

It wasn’t wrong.  

Steve tried not to listen when practice was over, and the locker room was alive with whispered conversations and eyes that kept staring at him. He looked down at the sink that he was filling up, scrubbing shampoo into his hair over the rising water.

He drowned out the words and the voices, and the world around him when he plunged his head beneath the water. He held his breath and washed out shampoo, and he felt like screaming.

Sometimes he thought about cutting his hair. He thought about snipping away at everything that was tethering him to King Steve, to Steve Harrington. He thought about completing this transition of turning himself into something awful, and empty, and new.

He always dismissed the thought for the same reason that he dismissed all the ones about tearing open his stitches with the knives in the kitchen. There was a deep settlement inside of him, this knowledge and acceptance, and sense of inevitability that he was not going to make it thought whatever _this_ was. And above all else, he wanted to die pretty.

He could have stayed beneath the water forever.

His lungs ached, and the water filled his mouth, and he wondered if Barb felt like this before she died. He pulled back at the last second with a harsh gasp and someone’s hand on his shoulder, “What the hell are you doing, Harrington?”

Billy.

Billy Hargrove who made appearances in his room like he was a damned angel, at the Byer’s house like a hurricane and a monster, and in the alley behind the arcade like a ghost. He was a tormentor and a savor.

He made no fucking sense.

Billy asked as many questions as rumors he started, as sneered he snorted and threats he made. It didn’t make any sense, nothing worked so contradictory.

Steve shook off the hand, “I’m fine.”

He just had to wait.

The inevitable would come.

Steve’s freedom would return to him at his own inconvenience.

He knew this fact and reminded himself of it as he stood in the parking lot with damp hair and a heavy backpack. His mother was tap, tap, tapping on her typewriter more and more, and his father’s new client was tangling up the phone lines.

He’d get his car back soon enough.

He’d get it back as soon as his parents remembered how inconvenient it was to have a son, to have to drive him to appointments and school, to have a schedule. He could probably satisfy their spy handlers jus by telling them where he was going and with who, but even that would fade.

And then, he’d be killed.

He had started timing how long it took his mother to notice that he went into the backyard, counting down the minutes on the face of his watch.

He didn’t really know why.

He thought that maybe his mind was planning an escape from his parents or Hawkins, or the spies that were surely watching for the moment that he was crazy enough to kill him without suspicion. He thought that his mind just wasn’t telling the rest of him about it.

He slumped back against the wall, wondering what was supposed to happen next in this fucked up movie script life. He was pretty sure, it wasn’t supposed to be Billy stomping out of the locker room with a cigarette between his teeth and standing there, expectantly.

Billy tapped his boot in the snow and tapped his fingernails against his belt buckle, leaning against his car parked right next to the exit with an honest to god winter coat. He said, “Well?”

Steve tilted his head down and to the side, and repeated, “ _Well?”_

“Get the fuck in, Harrington,” Billy said, rolling his eyes annoyed, “Or fuck the fuck off, I don’t care.”

Steve just blinked, “What?”

“Wanna get out of here or, what?” Billy asked in a voice that was sharp, and aggressive, and harsh. It sounded nothing like a question that Billy even wanted an answer to. “Get your ass in the car or freeze to death, pretty boy, I don’t really care.”

Steve had no idea what it was that really compelled him to move, only that somewhere deep in his chest, he already knew that his parents weren’t going to show up. He didn’t know what he’d do then.

He didn’t know what he was capable of if he was left all alone, so he climbed into the passenger seat. He rubbed his gloved hands together.

They ended up with fast food that Steve bought, sitting at the edge of the quarry where the water thinned into a wobbling frozen line and Hawkins dimmed into the silence of winter. Everything felt eerily frozen, lonely.

Steve missed the birds.

It felt like the first time in a long time that he’s missed anything.

Neither he nor Billy contributed to breaking the silence. Steve wasn’t really sure if it was because there was nothing to say, or nothing needed to be said.

He didn’t really know anything, only that they were always told never to walk to the center of the lake.

Every winter for as long as Steve could remember, some adult had some story about some poor child that walked onto the ice and was never seen again. He wondered if Billy knew about it.

He opened his mouth to tell him but closed it.

It felt almost like a dream.

All his movements felt like the actions of someone else, in somebody else’s manuscript. He crinkled the silence in a greasy wrapper and the suction cup sound of the door being pushed open. He crushed the silence beneath his plain tennis shoes and the crumble of a receipt as he shoved his hands into his jacket pocket.

“What the fuck are you doing, Harrington?” Billy said. “It’s cold as shit, shut the door.”

It sounded echoed and far away, and Steve remembered that he should never turn his back on Demogorgons, Demo-dogs, or Billy Hargrove. They were beings so violent, and hungry, and singularly destructive that the world carved out a space for them that was locked away from everybody else, and Steve still accepted the invitation inside of Billy’s car.

He remembered the cravings he had for wind in his hair and the sting of it against his face, for the height of the cliff sides that stretched jagged up into the heavens above him. He remembered wanting to fall, and a hard impact, and to drown, and he took a step forward.

He took another step.

And another step.

And another.

He didn’t feel like he was _breathing_. He didn’t feel like he needed to.

The rock station played as the Camaro came to life, headlights casting a far-reaching glow over the permafrost and the lake’s frozen edge. The radio sung, _time takes a cigarette, puts it in your mouth._

He’d lived too long.

His grandmother had always been right when she said that the soul inside of him was old, was ancient. It wanted to rest, to _breathe_.

God, he wanted to be _seen_.

He didn’t know the reason that he got into Billy’s car, didn’t know why he trapped himself inside two tons of metal with something monstrous except that he thought that he was starting to understand. There was no hope.

He had no _car_.

He left the school in a fast car when a crazed manic soul behind the wheel. He got into a car with the one person in Hawkins that drove too fast, too sharp, too wild despite the ice and the cold because Billy was the only person that was crazy enough to drive him to the edge. But not over.

He’d never go over.

He’d never get to _soar_ , or fall, or break to pieces on the water’s surface.

Did he even _want_ that anymore? Did he want anything anymore?

He didn’t _know_.

He took another step.

He nudged his shoe against the thin edge of frozen water, pressed his weight against it. The ice didn’t move, or groan, or splinter beneath his weight. It just settled. It existed. He took another step.

Billy’s door opened behind him, but Steve didn’t turn his head, not even at the wavered chill in his voice, “Harrington.”

“Shhhh,” Steve whispered. _Shhh._

The radio sang, _you’re too old to lose it, you’re too young to choose it._

“Harrington,” Billy tried again, his boots settling a step into the frozen sandy earth, but he didn’t come any closer. “What the fuck is this?”

The radio crooned, _you’re a rock n roll suicide_.

Steve kind of wanted to laugh, to cry.

He took another step in the casting glow of the headlines on the ice. He told Billy in a carried awed whisper, “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

His mind whispered, _bullshit, bullshit, bullshit._

It whispered, _it’s going to come back, you need to leave._

It whispered, _I just want it to stop._

“Stop – stop fucking around, Harrington,” Billy called, snapped. It felt like there was a wall of glass between them, like Steve was a science experiment and Billy was just an observer. “What am I supposed to fucking say if you fall through the ice?”

Steve stepped forward, stepped out of the light.

Into a dark unknown.

He felt alive.

He took another step forward and the ice protested, they both stopped. The break sounded deafening in the silence, sounded heartbreaking.

Billy said, “I’m not saving your ass again.”

He said, “You don’t fucking deserve it if you’re going to act this much like a dumbass.”

He said, “This is Darwinism.”

Steve stepped forward around the break he’d caused. He took one step, two, a third. The radio oozed a melody onto the wind, and it sung, _you’re not alone, no matter what or who you’ve been._

The radio sung, _I’ll help you with the pain._

The radio sung, _you’re not alone._

“Harrington,” Billy breathed out, sounding fucking – _something_ , sounding wrecked and wavered, and so unlike a monster and a ghost. He sounded worried, sounded fucking human. “ _Stop_.”

Steve wanted to _cry_.

He wanted to fucking – to – to – he didn’t _know_. He didn’t know what he wanted. He didn’t know how not to hurt, how not to be alone. He didn’t know what to do with the fear, or the guilt, or the loneliness. He didn’t know anything, and he was _tired_.

He was so fucking tired.

He was tired of the spies, and the waiting, and being betrayed by people that were supposed to care. He was tired of the horrible car crashy way that he felt that he might be wrong about everything.

He hated the way that it felt like he was standing right _next_ to the realization that there weren’t any spies, there weren’t microphones in his car and there was nothing under his skin, that he nearly fucking killed himself for no reason.

He _hated_ Billy.

He took a step forward and the ice splintered under his foot, it _gave,_ and his shoe slipped beneath the water before he stumbled backwards.

Billy’s intake of breath was _audible_.

 _Fuck_.

Steve was used to being afraid. He _was_ afraid of a lot of things, but mostly he just felt tired. He felt too tired to do this, to come to realizations and conclusions, to understand _why_ Billy was even here.

He used to think that there was a kind of electricity between thie, that they were two competing currents and there were sparks of a deadly persuasion, but that was wrong. It wasn’t electricity that brought them crashing into each other’s orbits, it was magnetism.

It had to be Billy because Billy was Steve’s downfall. He was an _angel_ , or a devil, or a Demogorgon, or a spy. It didn’t matter.

No one could save him, they could only _end_ him.

It had to be Billy.

The radio sung, _gimme your hand_.

Billy said, “Give me your hand, Harrington. Don’t be an idiot.”

He was suddenly close, suddenly on the ice with a strong grip pulling Steve away from the brink that he was so desperate to push himself into. Steve felt like crying. He felt like bawling. He felt like running.

He didn’t fight to pull his arm away until they were on solid ground. He didn’t fight the shove he was given either, or the push against the side of the car. He didn’t fight the almost gentle way that Billy touched his face before jamming his forearm under his chin, “What the fuck-“

“Please, don’t touch me.”

Billy took a step back and he breathed out, running his fingers into his hair before settling on, “Finish your fucking food, Harrington.”

Steve didn’t bother to push up his sleeves where they had fallen down his wrist, didn’t see the point when they were sitting in the icy cold on the hood of Billy’s car with cold food, and not saying anything. The whole situation was absurd and surreal as Hotel California seeping from the radio.

Billy was staring and finally asked, “What the fuck is all of this actually about?”

“Haven’t you noticed? Steve replied, smiling something vague and dead. “I’m a total fucking mess.”

“Yeah, everybody is. That doesn’t make you special.”

Steve told himself once that he couldn’t explain to someone about hell dimensions and how he got a nerdy looking girl killed in his backyard, or how many time he thought about downing in his pool. He had tied himself up in a bond to a party that wanted to betray him, that was _going_ to turn on him.

He had never been one of them.

Friends don’t lie to each other and if you messed with the party than you messed with them all, but Steve wasn’t in the party. He wasn’t one of them.

He couldn’t say anything about the Upside Down, but why not?

Sure, he signed some papers that he didn’t read but he’d been _seventeen_ and he was well fucking aware that contracts with minors weren’t _valid_. If Billy wasn’t a spy than it didn’t matter, if he was then…

Well, if Billy had anything to do with the government than this was the evidence that he needed. It was a sacrifice worth making because he wasn’t goddamn special but _El_ was, and _Will_ was, and they deserved to be safe.

He was already the lamb in the slaughter. The government was going to kill him, it was just a matter of waiting now. He didn’t _care_.

He just wanted to be _justified_. He wanted the party to know that he was _right_.

He just needed to know.

He didn’t know what exactly it was that cracked the dam inside of him, but he felt like he was drowning in the realization that he didn’t have a fucking thing to lose.

Companionable silence with his enemy turned to just words, and words, and so many fucking words. Steve couldn’t stop talking once he decided that he was going to.

He told Billy about the tunnels, and the demo-dogs, and how all he fucking wanted to do last year was apologize to Jonathan. He told him about Barb and how it was his fault, about the other dimensions and the spies, and he was so fucking afraid of the spies.

In the silence that followed, Billy took a drag of his cigarette and said, “That’s pretty fucked up, Harrington. You should write a book or something.”

And, Steve just fucking laughed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I've been horrible about updating lately. I'm sorry, but this one is only a day late which isn't that bad. 
> 
> BTW, it's Rock N Roll Suicide by David Bowie that was playing on the radio.


	24. Chapter 24

Steve didn’t say a word when he woke up.

He didn’t even _breathe_.

The nights had swum in black water and shimmered like shards of broken ice on ocean waves, crashing in his eyes and beneath his skin in slates. The days receded with tides, washing him frozen in dark recesses and drifting him out to sea. Time passed aimlessly.

He spent the weekend floating between sleep. He spent it weightless in ethers, and purgatories, and all the could-have-been futures that no longer existed for him.

He drowned in his own regret.

He sunk down deep beneath the weight of his words, found himself wedged between the things that he should never had said and the repercussions of saying them. He suffocated in what would come.

He laid in bed, paralyzed with fear.

The floor boards cracked the morning air with a whined groan, shattering his ice and his oceans, and dropping him back into his body. Had he been sleeping? Did it matter?

The floor creaked ominously beyond his closed eyes as flat soled boots scuffed against the carpet in a shifting back and forth movement. Steve held his breath.

No one came into his room anymore.

Not even his parents went farther than knocking on the door.

It was late morning sun that was spilling heat and light into the room which meant that his parents didn’t wake him up in the morning, which meant that somebody opened the curtains that he closed the night before. The sunlight weighted heavy on the mattress like a person sitting on Steve’s chest, caressing and touching his face with hands that felt like nothing.

There was no warmth in it, no comfort. Just warning.

He was not alone.

Steve didn’t open his eyes to the bright sunlight, didn’t breathe when a low electric hum buzzed into the room. He didn’t dare to even flinch at the squeaking sound of hard plastic hinges as he shifted his hand towards the edge of the bed.

His fingers brushed against the carpet.

His hand pressed flat against the floor, finding the edge of the bed skirt and slipping beneath it. He didn’t stop feeling around until his fingertips brushed over sharp nails, dragging down cool wood and wrapping his hand around the neck of his bat.

Actions spoke louder than words.

They always did.

Steve had spent the majority of the weekend in a high state of paranoia and panic, and he was consciously aware of it. He was _skin-crawlingly_ aware of every stupid fucking thing that he’d done that lead to him being scared.

He spent the weekend just… waiting, and anticipating, and sick to his stomach with a dread that was _eating_.

His mother thought that his meds were to blame for his sudden queasiness, and his lack of appetite, and how he looked ill and withdrawn. She spent Friday dinner and Saturday lunch talking about how she was going to talk to Dr. Bradley about making an adjustment.

He didn’t tell her that she was wrong.

He didn’t bother to tell her that he wasn’t fucking taking the pills because he wasn’t fucking suicidal, or depressed, or stupid. They’d _know_ that if they ever listened to him.

He didn’t _need_ to say anything.

He’s already said enough.

“ _You’re not supposed to walk on the ice,”_ Steve had repeated in his head over, and over, and over since he said them on Friday night, sitting in the passenger seat of Billy’s car. His own house stood at the end of the driveway, foreboding and haunting.

He remembered how it felt like they were doing something wrong just because they drove up the street with the headlines off and the radio turned down low. He remembered how it felt like something evil had crawled into the evening, and how his voice sounded lost when he added, “ _There are signs at the lake that say not to. You could be fined.”_

Billy’s voice had echoed in the hollow of his soul with something _different_ , and small, and pointlessly careful _, “Then why did you?”_

He didn’t say, _I don’t know_.

He didn’t say, _I don’t know why I do anything._

He didn’t say, _why did you stop me?_

Steve had shrugged his bony shoulders and fumbled with the door handle. He had pushed open the door, and said _goodbye,_ and _thanks for the ride,_ and _sorry_. He had walked up the driveway in a kind of dazed to a house that wasn’t a home and would never be one, feeling colder and icier, and more isolated and alone than he ever felt at the quarry.

No one had even noticed that he wasn’t there.

No one noticed at all.

No one questioned Steve about why he was getting home so late when school had ended, and the winter sun had set hours ago. No one even asked how he got home. It wasn’t _convenient_ to care.

Neither of his parents even _noticed_. No one ended their phone calls, or looked up from their notes, or stopped their _click, clack, clacking_ of their stupid fucking typewriter. They didn’t even remember their own damn schedule to pick up their _only_ son from school.

Steve had _hardly_ cared.

He hadn’t been surprised.

He closed his mouth and clenched his jaw and offered no words to anybody because they didn’t deserve them. No one listened to a goddamn thing he said, not his mother, not his father, not Dr. Bradley. No one cared.

He already said enough to Billy anyways, said too much.

He said enough to fill a grave.

Steve didn’t really start to regret his stupid impulsive decision to lay out his involvement with the Upside Down until the surefire confidence that he had nothing to lose turned to fucking _ice_. It had dimmed, and cooled, and died frozen in the forgotten words on the radio with the realization that he had a _life_ to lose.

The regret started to eat at him even before he got out of Billy’s car. It climbed into his mouth and sat on his tongue as he mumbled words about signs and ice, and _thank you_ , and _sorry_. Regret invaded his throat and gnawed at his insides until all that was left was the taste of blood and fear.

There was somebody in his room.

He was supposed to be prepared for this.

He was _ready_.

He had _thought_ that he was ready for what he knew was coming. He had been waiting for the evitable, for the spies and the government, and their torture devices.

He wasn’t supposed to be blindsided when he knew it was coming.

He should be relieved, he was going to die.

He should be relieved, he was _right_.

He should be relieved, this ended when he ended.

He should be relieved, but he didn’t want this.

He didn’t want any of it.

Dustin had called the house three times over the weekend, and Steve had stood by the phone each and every time, listening to it ring, and ring, and ring, and go silent. He breathed in the pause and listened to their outgoing message, and then Dustin’s animated reply.

He’d been more and more convinced that all of it was a trap for _something_ , some joint effort to drive him crazy as his father replayed the saved messages over, and over, and over again. Steve listened to the reply, _Steve! I heard from Will, who heard from Jonathan AND Nancy that you were back at school. Awesome! If you’re feeling better-_

It was insulting. It was mocking.

Written between the lines was, _you’re not going to college._

Was, _your friends are a fucking lie._

Was, _you’re going to die._

Was, _who is going to care?_

It was all a bold face fucking lie by traitors and liars, and people who turned their backs on him. It made Steve angry every time he heard the message play. He was _tired_.

He was fucking stupid.

God, he realized it now.

It was _Dustin_. It was a warning.

The Party were backstabbers and traitors, and they were setting him up for the fucking government to save their own skin, but The Party was a collective. Dustin was – an individual.

Dustin went against Party Rules before when he lied about D’art.

Dustin was _good_.

He would have tried to at least warn Steve about his impeding fucking doom, and Steve had just ignored it all like a idiot.

Honestly, it was exhausting.

Steve spent the weekend thinking, and hoping, and obsessing over Billy showing back up again. He turned corners and opened doors with the expectation that he would inexplicitly be there, but he never was.

Steve thought that the best case scenario was that he scared him off by being crazy, that Billy realized that Steve wasn’t just broken, he was _damaged_. The worst case was that he’d given Billy all the information that he needed to tell the government.

His mind whispered to him in taunts that _of course_ , Billy was a spy. He came to Hawkins after the gate opened. He was always around, ghostly in the way that he moved, and Steve still didn’t know how he kept getting inside in house. He was a spy, and Steve gave him everything he needed.

And now, there was a spy here.

In his room.

Steve had been stupid to think that maybe Reagan and his government were going to let Steve drive himself slowly mad, that maybe they’d take him out quick and fast, and merciful since he’d proven himself to be difficult to chip and pin. Steve hadn’t _showed_ any sign of actually knowing anything, they could have left him alone.

Steve had been _careful_ and then he got fucking careless because there was someone that was looking at him, and being nice, and offering him rides. He was going to die now, and he didn’t even know if he _wanted_ it.

 _Fuck_.

The TV from the guest room wasn’t supposed to be in his room and Jaws had the fucking worst theme song _ever_. There was a crack of static and Steve adjust his grip on his bat, and then dropped it, _‘This is the dumbest idea you’ve ever had, Dustin. Over.’_

Steve’s eyes snapped open as Dustin said, “Well, I’m _already_ here so if you thought it was a dumb idea than you should have said something-“

_‘I DID! I DID SAY SOMETHING! Like, a hundred times. Over.’_

“Sorry, Mike, I only take constructive criticism. Over.”

 _‘I said that you should call ahead,’_ Lucas’ voice cracked over the line. _‘Over.’_

“I tried that, didn’t work.”

‘ _It’s not our job to take care of Steve! Over. You don’t even know what you’re doing, you could just make him worse and-‘_

“Jesus Christ, Mike. _Shut up.”_

Dustin dropped his walkie-talkie onto the floor, giving it a little kick so that it flopped into the open lid of his backpack. He sighed, pushing his sleeves up before putting his hands on his hips, “ _Jerk_.”

He didn’t even look in Steve’s direction when he casually added, “Dude, what is up with you and Olivia Newton John?”

“I like her,” Steve muttered.

He didn’t really speak up with his weekend vow of silence with his parents and Dr. Bradley. The words felt weighty on his tongue, foreign in the way that words shouldn’t be, “She’s hot.”

“She _is_ hot,” Dustin agreed, nodding to himself. “Her music is lame though.”

“Who are you, Jonathan Byers?”

“ _Wow_ , that was a joke,” Dustin snorted out a laugh, dropping the cassette tapes he was fiddling with onto the desk. He flopped down onto the bed next to Steve and gave him a look, “I didn’t think that you were capable of telling a _joke_ , Steve.”

“You’ve seen my life, everything about me is a joke,” He replied, sitting up in bed. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to see you.”

Steve sighed, “ _Dustin_.”

“You’re not answering my calls,” Dustin pointed out. “How else am I supposed to know anything if you don’t answer my calls. You’re impeding my investigation. It’s an obstruction of justice.”

“I didn’t know that you called.”

“ _Liar_.”

Steve’s teeth snapped together, and he just barely didn’t snap back that it was The Party that were fucking liars. He said instead, “You said that there was no one spying on me.”

“Yeah, I did say that,” Dustin told him casually. “That’s true, that’s what I wanted to tell you because I said that I would look into it more. I didn’t come up with anything, Steve, like – _at all_.”

_Fucking traitor._

“I know that you thought that- I _get_ why you thought what you thought,” Dustin assured. “I know you want to be right but…I think that it’s even better that you’re wrong. No one is following you, or us, or El.”

“Hopper checked the Wheeler’s phone lines,” Dustin continued. “They weren’t tapped and he looked into what the electric company were doing there, and that’s legit. I looked into Dr. Winston more, traced some of her contacts back and they go a really long way back, Steve, a _really_ long way. I don’t really know what else to do because everything so far came back as negative.”

Steve gritted his teeth, looking down at his bedsheets. He _wasn’t_ wrong, he couldn’t be wrong. They were all trying to lead him into a false security before he was taken out.

They were all fucking _stupid_ if they thought that he couldn’t see through this.

“ _Soooo_ ,” Dustin drew out in a sudden shift, “That’s good news, right? That means that we’re safe and we can start worrying about other stuff. You missed a lot of school and I am in _Advanced_ Algebra, I can help you with your math homework if you want.”

“I don’t need help.”

“That’s even better, let’s watch a movie. I rented Jaws or, better yet, let’s go to the arcade,” He suggested, sighing when Steve gave him a tired look. He groaned dramatically and slipped to the floor beside the bed, “Steve! If we’re not seen together than people won’t believe me when I say that we’re friends. You’re my coolest friend!”

Steve heard a thump as Dustin flopped onto the floor and then a laugh before his head popped up again, “Dude, are you a closeted reader?”

“Huh?”

“I thought that teenagers just put dirty magazines under their beds,” Dustin laughed, holding up a few of Steve’s spy novels, “All of these books look like you bought them at a dime store in the _fifties_.”

Dustin flipped through one of them, curious of the parts that Steve had highlighted and written in the margins so that he knew what to look for from spies. He opened his mouth and then closed it, noticing how visibly pale Steve had went. “Uh, hey… hey, Steve. What’s – what is wrong?”

“Put them back.”

“It’s not that big of a deal,” Dustin said slowly. “No one is going to think that you’re less cool. Everybody reads and-“

“ _Put_ them back,” Steve breathed out. “Put them back, now.”

No one was supposed to know about the books. No one _could_ know about them, about how he had stayed up late and studied the pages, and _learned_. It made him dangerous, it made him a bigger target than what he was, and –

“Steve,” Dustin said carefully. “It’s _fine.”_

“No, it’s – fucking _drop_ it, okay. Drop the fucking book.”

Dustin put the book back where he found it and held up his hands, “I did, Steve. It’s like I never touched it, okay?”

It _wasn’t_ okay.

Dustin was going to tell The Party, and they were going to tell the spies, and he was going to be hurt worse than he already was.

Steve’s chest hurt, and his wrists hurt, and he whispered, “Get out.”

“Steve-“

“Get out.”

“Just – just let me say this,” Dustin pleaded. “I’ll leave if you want after I say this, I promise.”

Dustin took a deep breath, waiting for Steve to give him a nod. He didn’t start talking until he got one.

“Sometimes, I get really scared,” Dustin said softly but urgently, eyes wide and serious. “My heart starts to beat really fast and I get sweaty, and I feel like I’m – trapped, like the house in Wizard of Oz has fallen on top of me. My mom says that those are symptoms of a panic attack. Will says that he gets like that sometimes, too. It’s a little different for everybody.”

“It’s okay to be scared though,” Dustin continued. “It’s – Jesus, we’re _all_ scared sometimes and that’s _okay_. What we – _did_ , and what we saw in the tunnels and what we lost to the Upside Down was scary. It’s okay to be scared but it’s not okay when you’re scared all the time and you’re alone, Steve. You need to – _shit_.”

He ran his hands over his eyes, “Nancy said that I shouldn’t tell you what you should do because I’m not a doctor or anything. I – okay, I suck at this. I’m very pushy, you know that.”

“You get stuck in your head a lot, Will is like that,” Dustin shook his head, but continued. “He sees a therapist, someone that kind of knows about all this stuff, or at least enough about what he went through in the Upside Down to help him. She told him that there’s these things called triggers.”

“It’s like…” Dustin trailed off, face squinting up as he tried to articulate what he wanted to say. “It’s like how Will starts feeling scared and nervous when he’s cold because it reminds him of the Mind Flayer, or how he got a nightlight after being in the Upside Down, or how he doesn’t like the color blue anymore. Those are triggers for him.”

“I know what triggers are.”

“Oh, good,” He said brightly. “You’re supposed to figure out what those are for you and then try to reduce your interactions with them in your life. I can – I can help you do that, if you want. We’re friends, friends help people.”

“Will is – Will is seeing a therapist?” Steve asked, blinking. He focused in on the facts. “He sees a woman that knows about everything? Did Will tell you her name, what she looks like? It could be Dr. Winston using a disgu-“

 _“Steve,”_ Dustin stressed. “There aren’t spies after you.”

Dustin gave him a walkie-talkie after talking became pointless and Steve withdrew farther into himself. He told him carefully that friends don’t let friends go throughs stuff alone and that he was always there if Steve needed reminded what was real.

Steve wanted to tell him that they weren’t friends and that he didn’t try to commit suicide, but he didn’t really believe any of it anymore, “Thank you.”

 

Steve didn’t know what to except on Monday.

He had imagined men in military-grade armor and bulletproof _sunglasses_ to swarm the school with guns and grenades. He’d imagined pencil-pushing guys in lab coats and women in suits, and how very carefully that they’d lead him out of the school. He imagined a fate like Benny’s, like Bob’s, like Barb’s, but worse. He imagined something so much worse.

He grew tired, and sick, and anxious.

“Steve?” He mother asked in the car on the morning drive. “Are you okay? You look pale.”

 _No_.

Steve nodded, his eyes drifting out the window as he readjusted his grip on the handle, “Remember, school gets out at three o’clock.”

“I know that, Steve,” She sighed, reaching over and squeezing his other hand so that he would look at her. She met his eyes briefly before looking back to the road, “Tell me, Stevie – _Steve_ , what on Earth is going on in that head of yours. You’ve been withdrawn into your thoughts, it worries me.”

“I-“ _I’m going to die. I talked too much and now I’m going to be tortured for information that I can’t give and there is nothing that anybody is going to do to help me. Fucking traitor._ “I’m fine, Ma. I didn’t sleep well last night.”

She sighed, but smiled, “It was three o’clock?”

“Three o’clock,” He nodded.

Steve’s novelty as the school’s most recent basket case had not yet worn off, and he felt _watched_ from a distance. It didn’t help his paranoia or the obsessively itchy way that he wanted to claw off his skin.

The student body kept their distance from his long sleeve sweaters and his sweaty palms like suicide was something that you _caught_. They whispered their words about how horrible he looked like Steve didn’t _know_ that, like he didn’t already feel bad about it, like he couldn’t _hear_ them.

Billy was a ghost.

He was _gone_.

He wasn’t in the parking lot with his loud music and his loud car, and whatever vocal fight he and Max were having that morning. He wasn’t in the hallways, wasn’t pushing passed freshmen or threatening seniors, wasn’t flirting with whatever girl he managed to charm with a fake smile.

He wasn’t sliding up next to Steve at his locker with a viper smile and demo-dog teeth, calling him crazy, or dumb, or dead meat. He wasn’t slamming him into his locker, or knocking his books out of his hand, or saying _‘watch it, Harrington.’_

He was nowhere.

Billy wasn’t in their fourth period English class, sitting in the far corner and jabbing holes in everybody’s flawed logical arguments. He wasn’t anywhere until sixth period.

Billy wasn’t even _in_ Steve’s advanced art class.

 _No one_ was in Steve’s advanced art class unless they were really serious about moving to New York City or San Francisco, unless they were really talented and determined to go to _art school_ to get jobs in photography, or at art museums, or animating movies at Disney. No one took advanced art unless they _liked_ art, or unless they took all the other art electives and didn’t want to spend their senior years taking auto shop or Spanish.

His art teacher, Miss Seymour – who insisted that they call her _Annalise_ even though her nametag said that her name was _Lisa_ – was a little bit eccentric, and a little too colorful, and a whole lot of exhausting. She was always a little too drunk and wore too much red lipstick.

She announced at the start of class in a fake French accent that they would be painting portraits this week and that she had invited some of Hawkins’ Class of 1985’s best and brightest to model for them.

Steve was surprised that Billy was considered the best or brightest of anything. He wasn’t that surprised that Billy chose to swagger onto the stool in front of Steve’s easel with a smirk, “What’s shakin’, pretty boy?”

Visibly, Steve _was._

He has been all day.

Steve caught sight of Jonathan’s narrow blue eyes from across the room, looking at them and observing them as he tied his smock around his waist like it was going to save his already paint splattered shirt. He didn’t look away when Steve turned his head to him, nor when Billy did.

Jonathan only looked back to his easel when Billy said loudly, “Why don’t you take a picture, Byers? You’re into voyeurism shit like that, aren’t ya?”

There was a small, almost unnoticeable scar on the underside of Billy’s jaw. It was a silver indent along the sharp line of his face, something that gouged out a little place in his skin. Steve teeth rung with the remembrance of a hard fist snapping his jaw shut.

He remembered a swift kick to his stomach, a manic terrifying laugh, _fire_.

He remembered that Billy Hargrove was a very pretty monster, a very _deadly_ monster, and someone or _something_ took a chunk out of him. Steve’s fought monsters in the junk yard, and the Byers’ house, and in those tunnels, and all the scars that he had to show for it raised off his skin. Never anything taken, just added.

Steve Harrington had died smothered under the weight of added-on trauma, and what walked out was – _him_. Whoever he was now.

Billy raised an eyebrow at him, “Don’t got all day, pretty boy.”

Annalise was always saying something as she flailed around the room with her looping scarves so dangerously close to the paints and her heavily exaggerated exclamations. She was encouraging in a lot of ways that Steve didn’t really know what to do with and exhausting in all the other ways.

She was always asking Steve questions, always asking, “And what are you trying to express with this piece, Steve?”

She was always saying, “Take the assignments and make them your own.”

Always said, “This is a gift that you have, Steve. Unwrap it.”

It was like they had their own little job interview of questions and answers, like dinner with his parents every night.

Steve wasn’t even particularly _good_ at art, not in the way that people who were passionate about it were or the way that Will was good at it. He’d only gotten in the class because he’d unintentionally passed all the prerequisite fucking around with his electives. He was _decent_ at art.

He could draw eyes, but _everybody_ could draw eyes. He could curl a mouth into a flirty grin or shape eyebrows convincingly. He could do a decent job at tracing a jaw line and cutting the shade of sharp cheekbones. He could paint a still life, and do a paint-by-number, and mix colors well enough, but he wasn’t _gifted_.

He wasn’t going to do anything with any of this.

Annalise was always telling him that it didn’t matter about being _good_ , or _perfect_ , or the _best_. She told him that it was about expressing himself, about his own views and interpretation of his feelings and the world around him. She told him to stop worrying about the grade and to find his own inspiration, find the reason that he _breathes_ and put it into his art.

It sounded a lot like bullshit.

She always told him to close his eyes and find what was inside of him, and put that on the paper. She told him to be his authentic self, no matter how gooey, or dark, or ugly, or uncool that it was.

Steve hadn’t had a lot of inspiration or energy to express anything for months because for a long time, Steve hadn’t felt _anything_. He felt like a nobody, a nothing, a ghost.

There wasn’t anything to pull from inside of him because there was nothing but hollow space there. There still was.

She used to sit by his easel and watch as he painted what was on his mind, what was in his heart, what filled his bones with life, and bright optimism, and hope.

She would watch with her head tilted and her red lips pressed together as his brush curved over the lids of pretty blue eyes or along a pensive furrowed brow. She would cross her fingers over her knee and follow his brush as it painted delicate curls and narrow shoulders, detailed out dorky knitted sweater patterns and a soft bitten lip.

She used to ask, “This girl means something to you. She is special, yes?”

He used to beam, “She means the world.”

“Is that the reason that you paint her in so much shadow?” She had asked, had never called it Nancy because he never painted Nancy. He had never captured her full essence, her power, her importance in the cotton fabric canvas.  “Do you see the way that the girl you’ve been painting is turned away from you, her creator? The way that you’ve casted shadow over her, sometimes so dark that it is all that you see. Is she full of darkness or are you trying to hide her from the rest of the world? What are you trying to say?”

He had said, “I just can’t draw hands, ma’am.”

Halloween had come, and it went in the worst ways possible. The world opened and nearly swallowed itself whole, Bob died, and Barb got a headstone, and everything was _bullshit, bullshit, bullshit._ His nose had been broken and face made ugly, and he never felt handsome, or pretty, or _good_ since that night. Bruises faded, and nothing came _back_.

He spent _days_ , and _weeks_ , and _months_ just staring at blank canvases and craving the comforting white numb that had come with tightly closed fist and dinner plates, with blue pills, and blood loss, and glass.

Then, he slashed the canvas up.

He painted over fresh white canvas and his old ones, painted over pensive stares and shadowed hands with a broad brush and sloppy strokes like Demogorgon claws frenzies and blood. He painted over pastel purples and pinks with violent strokes of blue, and violet, and black, and red.

What was he expressing?

He never knew.

Annalise always said that it was brilliant.

She stopped asking about shadowing and technique, about what it was that he was trying to say. She started gushing about laying and antagonizing _pain_ , and sorrow, and nerve-ending exposure that _bled_ through the paint. She talked about how it challenged the mind, almost _taunting_ to have the viewer deconstruct the madness, the pain.

Steve thought that it was bullshit.

She asked him what he wanted to call his growing collection of paintings, and he had shrugged, “A mess.”

Steve blinked.

He looked at Billy’s face and then down at the blank canvas in front of him.

His mind tingled around the edges, ached in the cracks of his nose, in the scar in his hair. He wiped his hands on his jeans and swallowed hard.

Billy was staring just over and to the left of Steve’s head, eyes critical on Annalise’s painting of the changing seasons and haunted spirits. Steve could see it before Billy felt the need to say anything, “You don’t get it.”

“Am I supposed to?”

“Art is subjective,” Steve said in a soft mumble, picking up his paintbrush and dipping it in his cup of water. “Annalise said that it’s about the fragility of time, or something like that.”

“What would she know about fragility?”

Annalise had been in a car crash a couple years ago, something so bad that it had made the paper and the news all the way to Indianapolis. She had scars up her legs and on one of her arms, and walked with a slight limp. Steve always wondered if he carried his new death experiences in the encompassing way that she carried hers.

He sighed a response, “What do any of us know?”

Billy was in front of him, wearing anger like it was a coat of armors, like it was Annalise’s mirrored coat of car crashed glass. He was in front of him with eyes too seeing and too blue, windows to the oily faceless monsters beneath, and Billy wore a scar that was scratched into his skin.

Steve wanted to ask about California.

He wanted to ask about the spies.

He wanted to know what was coming for him, but he closed his mouth when Annalise’s red fingernails caressed Billy’s jaw like a ghost. She petted the air next to the monsters as she tilted Billy’s head and observed him, leaning in close to Steve, “Look at that jawline on this boy, it is exquisite. It is a lot to work with.”

“I know,” Steve breathed out, breathed in. “I’m about to get started.”

“So, work,” She stated encouragingly, and then announced to the class, “Now, this does not have to be a simple portrait. This is not the fourteenth century, after all, and none of us are being commissioned. Make it your own, find your _inspiration_ and follow it.”

Steve sighed and pressed his brush to the canvas, forcing himself to focus on Billy in an abstract way. He was blue eyes and sharp lines, and nothing more than that because if Billy was anything _more_ than Steve was going to paint something awful. If he painted what he really thought of Billy than someone would ask about it, and he’d have no real explanation.

“A little bitchy red headed birdie told me about some interesting shit that went down between you and Tommy boy,” Billy said suddenly, softly. Jonathan kept looking over like he was worried, but Steve couldn’t take his eyes of the way Billy’s lips curled into a smirk, “Something about you, a bathroom, and having a shit ton of pills in your pocket.”

“Typically, I wouldn’t believe that shit,” He continued, painfully casual but each word landed like it should hurt, “But I guess that all you rich types got some kind of vice. What, raiding Mommy Dearest’s medicine cabinet?”

Steve dabbed his paintbrush into blue paint and then into white, and pressed it to the canvas, Billy continued, “Guess there’s truth in a lot of shit considering that you’re all happy suicidal now.”

“I – that’s not true.”

Steve was _never_ suicidal.

He didn’t want to be alive, but he didn’t want to kill himself, _himself_. He was – apathic to his existence. He was just tired.

To kill himself was too much fucking effort and he didn’t even have a car, so no, he wasn’t _suicidal_.

“My mom killed herself.”

Billy said the words so sudden, but so soft that they hit with the impact of a pillow. He shifted on his stool, but his eyes stayed on Steve, over Steve, at the painting of the changing seasons and the ghost. The fragility of life.

Steve didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing.

“That bitch was always so fucking happy, too,” Billy continued, fingers itching for something. He reached behind his ear before dropping his hand into his lap. Steve swallowed hard.

“She was so fucking perfect, down to a motherfuckin’ tee,” Billy continued in a soft haunt of a voice, like Steve was the only person around. “Even when she was covering up bruises and shit, she would do up her hair and make herself real pretty, just like you. Used to take all these little white pills that she bought of some burnt out college kid just to make herself happy.”

“Went to school one day,” He said when Steve said nothing. “She must’ve liked those pills more than life because she took all of them. It was a big damn show when I got home, car ride to the hospital and all, just you.”

He didn’t say anything for a second, his fingers dancing over his earring and then followed down his neck to the pendant he wore. He swallowed audible.

Steve didn’t know what to say.

He cleaned his brush and opened his mouth, but Billy continued.

“I couldn’t fucking stand her when she was alive,” He said bluntly. “I’m probably supposed to feel sorry about that, feel guilty or some shit that makes no sense, but I made my peace with it. I love her, she’s my mama, but she was the dumbest fucking bitch that I’ve ever met. I love her more now that she’s dead.”

Steve never really paid much attention to the lesson of the week in class, somehow slashing over whatever sketch he made with hard lines.

He almost said, _maybe she was tired_.

He almost said, _maybe you pushed her too hard._

He almost said, _I don’t want to die._

He said, “Okay.”

Billy mocked back, “ _Okay_.”

He didn’t know what Billy wanted from him because Steve never asked for this honest. He didn’t want it.

He was fucking offended by it, by the – the fucking audacity that Billy had to pile this death onto him too, like Steve was retroactively responsible for that too. Then, Billy fucking _sneered_ at him like Steve should guilty about trying to kill – _no_.

“I wasn’t trying to kill myself.”

“Right,” Billy said with bite. “It was the spies controlling your brain.”

Steve closed his mouth, focusing on Billy’s eyes, and his jaw, and his fists squeezed shut in his lap. He weaved together colors of fleshy oranges and browns, and brilliant blue eyes, and then he sliced through the soft colors with deep red and black, and _purpose_.

He painted the canvas with lines of black, dripping down the page in uneven thickness. It didn’t look like anything but when Steve looked at it, he thought of tunnels.

If he closed his eyes, it breathed.

It took Steve a while to manage to say, _“No one_ was controlling me, they put a tracker inside of me. I told you-“

“Did you find it?” Billy asked. “What they put inside of you because it sounds like you created a pretty bullshit story, pretty boy.”

Billy looked angry, his brows doing that Nancy thing where they pulled together like Steve was disappointing him. He looked upset that Steve was not telling him the _‘real’_ reason that he was so fucked up, that was lying even though Billy told him how he felt about liars.

He told Billy about the tunnels, sitting on the roof of his car in the freezing cold. He told him about everything, except about El. He told him a little about Will and how he went missing, about his own pat. He painted a picture of himself with his words that he was isolated and alone, but he had talked about the tunnels.

Billy wasn’t a spy, the realization came late and settled like _fungus._ It stuck to his insides and burrowed deep, it infected everything. He wasn’t a spy.

Steve painted, and painted, and painted until all that was left untouched was blue eyes and bloody fists, and a sneer on a pretty on a pretty face.

Billy looked disturbed when he swaggered over to see the final production. Annalise had gushed over the layering, but even she seemed to feel the undercurrent of cold.

Billy Hargrove was just a bully.

He was nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TWO THINGS:  
> (1) This chapter was really hard to write and covered about half of what I wanted it to, and I think the reason for that is because I started Castle Rock. I just don't know what to do with that show, or myself after finishing it. 
> 
> (2) Everybody was really concerned with Billy in the last chapter and guys, chill. I'll be straight up, this story isn't a redemption arc for Billy because I don't think that anything that has happened to him would warrant one. 
> 
> As a character in Steve's 'movie script,' Billy is underdeveloped. Steve reduces him down to the archetypes that he plays for me - the bull, the angel, the monster - but Billy is a whole person on his own. Steve doesn't know what's going on at home, all he really sees are these shift towards a nicer behavior because what happened in the parking lot did scare Billy. 
> 
> It effected him. It made him warier of Steve and more curious, and he's not unredeemable. He's a person with good and bad qualities, but not evil. I think that it's worth remembering that in the show and this fic, Billy is an angry kid. He's mean, and obsessed, and he goes home every day to an abusive parent. 
> 
> He's shifting towards in this fic towards maybe that breakthrough that Steve had in season one, but Steve can't and isn't going to help him do that. Billy stated in his POV chapter that he's aware of his own behavior and mentality, and knows that he could change it but no intention of doing so. So, I think that Steve hurting is affecting him, but it's not a change that will last.


	25. Chapter 25

Nancy was staring at him.

She was there, across the parking lot.

She was there, like there was nowhere else she should be. There, like the earth and the moon, and all the stars in this damned universe had aligned for this very moment. She was there, like chaos and distance, and _fate_ had tired them together tighter than the tragic fate of Romeo and Juliet, than the enviable conclusion of him and Billy Hargrove. 

She was there like she had _planned_ to be there with her eyes like round frozen blue crystals, just watching.

Then, she’d blink.

She’d look away.

They were all repeating patterns.

Day in and day out, breathe in and breathe out, seconds repeated. And people repeated. And life repeated over, and over, and over again. It was pointless.

Nancy was just _there_ when Steve walked out of the school. She was watching him and observing him, and then looking away in ways that felt weighted, felt – _grating_. It felt like she was sliding a cheese grater across his skin every time she looked at him, looked away, looked back.

It was grinding.

Steve shook out a pack of old cigarettes that he found in his jacket pocket and lit one. He stared back.

Nothing truly meant anything anymore, not even this.

Nancy was dressed up real pretty in a long jean skirt and a thin little pink and blue cable-knitted sweater, something so bizarrely impractical in the mid-day chill for a girl that prided herself on being so _smart_. It only served as proof that despite all the time that had passed since that night in November, nothing really changed because it was still _cold_.

It was freezing.

Steve knew that her sweater didn’t stand up to the wind because Nancy had described it as wearing tissue paper once, because he’d bought her that sweater for their first Christmas and she had said that it was lovely, but she wouldn’t be able to wear it until the end of _March_ , at least.

She said that she loved it though. It was cute.

Nancy shivered, sliding her gaze away as she pulled at the heavy jacket of dingy jean and corduroy that was draped over her shoulders like a cape. It was a hideous cheap jacket that screamed _poor_ and _Jonathan Byers_ and brought up imagines of the smell of cigarette smoke and electrical fire, and the oozy burnt taste of Upside Down monsters in the back of Steve’s throat.

She was leaning against the side of Jonathan’s piece of shit car with her blinder rested open in one arm as she scribbled absently in her neat cursive while the girls from Model UN talked away around her about something or other. Nancy kept looking over the top of her binder at him, her brows pulling together like she actually saw something.

She would look away, write some more.

She was watching him.

He was watching her, watch him, watch her. They both knew that the other was aware of it, too.

It was weird.

It meant _something_.

They had existed together in this little bubble, tethered unwittingly to the other far passed their relationship’s expiration date by Barb’s death and the Upside Down, and the shared mutual agreement that they screwed each other over. Hawkins was too small to ever be _that_ far from each other, too small to avoid people forever. It was suffocating sometimes.

There was this balance that they walked, something between what _was_ and what _isn’t_ , and nothing just _happened_ anymore unless someone made it happen.

So, Nancy was staring, and it meant _something_.

Steve was just too tired to figure out what it was.

He was supposed to be taking this medication that was supposed to make him more compatible with the universe, supposed to make all of this more bearable. These little white pulls that he flushed down the drain each morning because no one was even _making_ him take them. They were just assuming that he was, that he would give in so easily because a fucking doctor prescribed them. It was dumb.

They were supposed to make him better, as if there was anything about him that could be _better_. They were all treating him with these kid gloves, as if the underlying issue was that he was just _sad_ , or depressed, or suicidal, or something that could be _fixed_.

Nancy was looking up at him again.

Her eyes grated across his hunched shoulders and scraped off his skin as they traveled up his throat and over his chin to the cigarette dangling from his lips, that he wasn’t even really smoking. Her eyes cut over his sunken cheekbones and the wind-swept stinging blush on his pale face before dropping down to his wrist.

They burnt like she had torn through his layering of clothes to cut into his stitches.

She gnawed on her bottom lip as her eyes _burrowed_ into him because she was _watching_ him, and he was watching her, and really. Nothing ever really meant anything. It was a pattern, a cycle, totally fucking pointless.

Nancy felt _guilty_.

It wasn’t concern about Steve’s well-being. It wasn’t worry. It wasn’t anything other than _guilt_ , and guilt was always selfish in nature. Guilt was placing the way things effect you over the effected, it was always a singular act of self-importance.

Nancy liked to take all the pain in the world and _eat_ it until she felt bloated and sick, and corpse-like. She felt _bad_ because she wrapped herself up in all the fact and manipulated them to make herself the victim and the enemy, the same way that his parents twisted the facts to make themselves silent observers.

Barb _wasn’t_ their fault.

Sure, Steve felt guilty about Barb. Nancy felt guilty about Barb. It was all _bullshit, bullshit, bullshit_ on a basic fucking level because they were selfish people. They were blaming themselves for an interdimensional fucking faceless monster that neither of them knew anything about crawling into his backyard. 

It wasn’t their _fault_. It wasn’t.

Steve had spent a whole goddamn year telling Nancy that, telling her that it _sucked_ that Barb’s parents didn’t know but what were they supposed to do? How were they supposed to explain what they knew that didn’t make it look like they killed her? He had tried to protect them, and Nancy was right, it was _bullshit, bullshit, bullshit._

What he should have done was run off while Will was fucking hallucinating monsters and Dustin was adopting Demogorgons. He should have brought news stations and government agents to Hawkins, make them all look really fucking suspicious so that spies could pick them off later.  

He breathed out.

He was probably a little bitter. Probably.

He should probably just _take_ the pills.

It wasn’t like it even mattered. He didn’t know where he stood anymore because Billy wasn’t anything. He wasn’t a spy.

Steve was just a ticking clock on a suicide bomber, the bull’s eyes of his own fucking arrow. He was so _fucked_ , broken beyond all repair, but there was medication.

He’d been on medication before.

He had swallowed pills with apple juice each and every morning when Dr. Bradley had prescribed them after his grandmother had died and getting out of bed was really hard, and he’d stopped fixing his hair so much. They didn’t _do_ anything.

They didn’t make him feel good, or better, or bring his grandmother back. They didn’t get him out of bed because he was _already_ doing that even though it was hard. They didn’t make him feel worse. Just consistent.

He just felt consistently _blah_.

Which was _fine_. It was fine, then.

It was a big fat _whatever_ , but he didn’t want to feel consistently _blah_ anymore. He didn’t want to just feel empty all the time. If he was going to feel awful every day for the rest of his sorry existence than he wanted to at least have some variation in how awful he felt.

Steve sighed.

He wasn’t even disappointed that his parents’ Lincoln wasn’t in the parking lot. He couldn’t be bothered to feel like he was going to cry when he already knew that he’d be watching one by one, by one as cars and people started to disappear from the parking lot. He didn’t even care about the passing whispers like he was Hawkins’ newest tourist attraction.

He used to rule this school, but the mighty always fell hard.

He used to rule Hawkins.

He used to have a car.

Nancy was looking at him again and it made him wish that the world would open up and swallow him whole. It seemed like a lot of work, so he stopped wishing for anything.

It made a lot more sense why Nancy kept looking over at him when Jonathan slide up next to him. He leaned against the back wall next to Steve as casually as the guy that stole his girlfriend could, “Uh, hi. Hey.”

Steve didn’t say anything.

He watched unimpressed as Jonathan tucked his hands under his armpits, looking cold without his jacket. He took a drag of his cigarette and flicked the ashes on the ground.

Once upon a time, he had quick smoking.

For basketball. For his health. For Nancy.

“I saw your painting on the drying racks in art class after you left,” Jonathan said unprompted, like Steve didn’t know that A-D stored their art on different racks than E-H. “I think that Miss Seymour was onto something when she said that you should put together a collection for the art show.”

Steve was pretty sure that wasn’t true because he was pretty sure that he remembered Jonathan talking to one of his lame friends about how abstract art was the worst. He took another drag, “That right?”

“Uh, yeah,” Jonathan nodded. “It’s – I mean, there’s a form that you have to fill out to be in the show, but it’s a good opportunity. Seymour gets a lot of art critics and gallery owners, and directors from art schools in Indianapolis, and Chicago, and Birdseye to check it out. Sometimes people will even try to buy your work.”

Steve snuffed out his cigarette beneath his shoe, “This is the most that you’ve ever said to me.”

“Usually you do the talking,” Jonathan shrugged. It felt like a dig to the time Steve opened his big mouth and Jonathan kicked his ass, but Steve ignored it as he dug a new cigarette from his pack. “Can I, uh…”

He gestured to the pack in his hand and Steve tossed the whole thing to him. He was pretty sure that Jonathan didn’t smoke either, but whatever.

They were all pretending a lot of things, this was one of them.

“Uh, I don’t know – about what happened at the hospital,” Jonathan tried awkwardly after he failed to light the cigarette three times and settled on just holding it. “Dustin had said that everybody should check on you since The Party and everything, and Nancy wanted to. I – we didn’t mean to upset you, but we had, and I don’t know, I’m sorry. _We’re_ sorry. Nancy wants to – she wants to talk to you because she’s worried, you know.”

That wasn’t his problem, Steve wanted to say.

Fuck off, Steve wanted to say.

That sounded a lot like a _Jonathan_ problem. It sounded like a _Nancy_ problem.

Steve wasn’t good at fixing problems and he wasn’t about to start fixing Jonathan’s, or Nancy’s, or Billy fucking Hargrove’s. He had his own problems.

He lived so _far_ from the school and Steve didn’t dress for the weather because his mom was supposed to pick him up. It was so cold, and _he likes it cold._ Shut up.

He didn’t fucking want this.

“What do you want?” Steve finally asked.

Jonathan scuffed his shoe against the ground, “I’m here, if you ever want to talk.”

“I don’t.”

“ _If_ you do, or need to talk to somebody and there’s no one there,” He clarified. “I – I’m not going to pretend that I get what you’re going through but I, there have been times where I’ve thought about – about _that_. A few times.”

Steve sucked in a breath, feeling like he inhaled _knives_ and it killed off any willpower that he had to fucking be alive. Jesus.

He was _tired_ of this goddamn conversation.

He was tired of people telling him their problems like he had any idea what to do with them. Why did people think that he cared? What did they think that he was supposed to do with all this goddamn shit that they kept piling on him?

Broken people attracted broken people, but Steve didn’t fucking _care_.

He didn’t care about himself.

He didn’t have the _energy_ to care about his own life, much less about something that happened in someone else’s past. He didn’t even _like_ Jonathan, didn’t like Billy.

He could _barely_ make it through the school day, could barely get out of bed, could barely eat without feeling like death. Everybody wanted him to start caring about them? No.

It was bullshit.

Steve was _not_ the go-to person, he had never been that person. He was never going to be the person that had the energy or that _cared_ to fix Jonathan’s sad little existence, or to figure out what triggers were. He was never going to care that Billy’s mom killed herself and that Steve was a _trigger_ for him. He didn’t _care_.

Fucking Christ.

Goddamn it.

“O _kay_.”

“So, I – we’re neighbors,” Jonathan said, sticking his hands in his jean pockets and bunching his shoulders together. “As close to a neighbor as I have and – we never played together as kids, or anything, but I think that matters if you ever need to talk to anybody. It’s not that far of a walk.”

“You would know.”

“I – Dustin said that he gave you a walkie-talkie,” He continued like Steve didn’t speak. “Nancy and I have a frequency that we use that’s private from the kids, for emergencies, or nightmares, or just if you need someone to talk to.”

 _God_ , Steve thought.

When did his life get this goddamn pathetic? It would be a godsent for a spy to take him out at this point. It would be a blessing.

Steve didn’t even know where to begin with this. He didn’t know how to tell Jonathan that no, he didn’t fucking want to use the frequency that he and Nancy probably had phone sex on, _god_.

“I saw – you with Hargrove, during art class,” Jonathan clarified, like he was worried that Steve was other places with Billy, like he knew that they were. He probably did. _Stalker_.

“I know that – no one really knows what happened between the two of you,” He continued when Steve didn’t even look at him. “No one knows what happened in that parking lot, just what he said and what Hopper told us.”

 _Hopper said that you hurt yourself,_ went unsaid.

 _Billy said that you’re crazy_ , went unsaid.

 _Jonathan Byers feels sorry for you, King Steve,_ went unsaid.

_You should have died._

Shut up.

Steve breathed in and breathed out, “Shut up.”

“No one is considering that maybe he _pushed_ you too far, pushed you to your breaking point, and you did something without thinking like – _that_ ,” Jonathan said _that_ because no one wanted to say that he attempted suicide to his face. It was like they all thought that if they said it than he’d go into a trace and give it another go.

They were wrong.

He never attempted suicide. He was trying to save himself.

 _For what?_ His mind whispered.

_From what?_

_From what? There was nothing inside of you. From what? There are no spies, no government agency, no conspiracy. From what? You thought you were special, thought you were important, wanted, watched. You weren’t._

Shut up.

“I’ve seen how Hargrove treats you,” Jonathan said. “He bullies you and, it’s not my place to say, but I know what it’s like to be pushed around. I know what it’s like to be pushed, and pushed, and pushed until you snap, to be tormented until the wrong thing is said at the wrong time, and you _react_ and do something that you would never do otherwise.”

Steve could read between the lines. He knew what Jonathan was not saying about how Steve had pushed, pushed, pushed him to the brink and got his face beaten in as a result. He was saying that he and Jonathan were the same now, except that Steve wasn’t a fighter so he only hurt himself.

“You’re right,” Steve said, taking another drag of his cigarette, feeling Nancy’s cheese grater eyes peeling back the layers. “It’s not your place to say anything.”

He dropped the cigarette and grinded it into the ground, practically able to _feel_ Nancy’s frown carve into the side of his face as he resigned himself with the fact that his mother forgot about him, “I have practice.”

Steve didn’t wait for a response, turning on his feet and disappearing back into the school. No one ever left good enough alone, not even Jonathan, so he didn’t just go to Nancy and say he tried. He didn’t drive off to do _whatever_. He followed Steve into the school grabbing his arm, “Steve, wait.”

“Don’t fucking touch me,” Steve said harshly, pulling his arm away violently. It _hurt_ to be touched.

“I’m sorry,” Jonathan said, putting his hands up. “I – if you need a ride, I can give you one. Dustin said that you aren’t driving right-“

“Everybody needs to stop fucking talking about me,” Steve snapped. “Take me off the fucking agenda for your _Talk Shit_ club and just – _shut up_. I’m not-“

“This guy bothering you, Stevie?” Tommy said, appearing suddenly like this was tenth grade and Steve was getting too friendly with a senior’s girlfriend. He was smiling like they weren’t smiling, all teeth like Tommy was a fighter when Steve forced him to be.

Steve wanted to cry. _No._

He wanted to bawl his eyes out. _Yes._

 _I’m going to die, and no one will notice_.

“Why don’t you back off, Byers,” Tommy said, slinging his arm around Steve’s shoulders. It was almost threatening, almost a warning for a rematch that had never happened. “Stevie clearly doesn’t want you around and I don’t think you’re gonna be able to afford a new camera again. Freak.”

Jonathan’s eyes shifted from Tommy’s viper smile to Steve’s eyes, asking without words if he was okay. Steve looked away and Jonathan dropped his hands by his side, “What I said still stands, Steve.”

“Yeah, I’m sure it matters, _freak_ ,” Tommy said dismissively. He tightened his arm around Steve’s shoulders and used his own momentum to turn them around. He didn’t let go and Steve didn’t protest it in any outward motion until they around a corner.

Tommy’s arm was off him and he was steps back before Steve could open his mouth. He held his hands up much like Jonathan had, “I come in peace, Harrington. Don’t freak on me, just looked like you could use an out there.”

“Didn’t see you at lunch today, buddy,” Tommy barreled on through despite Steve opening his mouth to speak. He closed it when Tommy put his hand on his shoulder and nudged him into walking towards the field house. “Shit, man. We’re going to be late for practice. Hurry up.”

Something compelled Steve to move, something oily and cold, and helpless with nowhere else to go. It was the same thing that had compelled him into getting into Billy’s car, into walking on the ice. Steve followed.

He took step, after step, after step, mumbling to Tommy that he ate his lunch in Mrs. Gonzales’ room, so he could work on his make-up work. It wasn’t that Tommy didn’t already know that, everybody already knew that.

“Listen, Steve-O,” Tommy said in that way that he used to say, _‘Steve’s my best friend, Mama.’_ The way that he used to say, _‘You remind me of my aunt sometimes, she gets depressed too.’_ The way that he had said, _‘Steve, I’m not going to just let you die.’_

“I’ve been hearing things,” He said, stopping short in the hallway that lead to the locker rooms. He rounded on Steve, just staring at him for a moment before saying, “Hargrove’s been talking a lot of crazy shit.”

“Billy is full of shit,” Steve said, hands crushing in his pockets for no reason. He should have just walked home. “Billy is nothing.”

“Yeah, I know that,” Tommy said like that wasn’t the issue that _he_ just brought up. “Some of it stuck though. It got me thinking and man, you didn’t do shit to Barb.”

“What?”

“Hargrove’s got this long list of like – I don’t even know, but it’s pretty fucking clear that he’s been talking to you,” He said. “Said that you blame yourself for Barb dying and that shit isn’t on you. It’s fucked up that she died, but you didn’t have anything to do with that shit.”

 _Bullshit,_ his mind whispered in Nancy’s drunk cadence. _You’re bullshit._

 _You’re pretending that everything is okay,_ his mind whispered. _Like we didn’t kill Barb._

_Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit._

Steve’s face must have twitched or twisted, or something because he _believed_ Tommy. He _knew_ that he didn’t kill Barb, that Nancy didn’t. He knew _that,_ but he also knew that he didn’t want her there that night, that he wished venomously for her to fucking leave. He didn’t make sure that she got to her car, that she was inside.

He saw her cut her hand and wished that would convince her to _go_ , but all it did was get her drowned, get her dragged to the Upside Down, get her killed. He knew that he didn’t kill her, but he _wanted_ her gone, and she was.

It was the only fucking time he ever got what he wanted, and it _haunted_ him. It wasn’t his fault, but it _was_.

Nancy never said that it wasn’t.

Nancy blamed him.

“It’s not your fault,” Tommy repeated. “It’s not your fault that she got herself all mixed up in some government conspiracy shit, I don’t care what Wheeler’s telling you. I told you that she was a bitch.”

“Shut up.”

Tommy raised his hands, “Difference of opinion, I’m not taking that back and it doesn’t _matter_ what you think about her. If she’s telling you that it’s your fault that she didn’t take care of her friend than that’s on her. If she drove you to – to be taking pills and cutting your wrist than that’s on her, too. _You_ didn’t kill Barb.”

Of course, Steve didn’t fucking kill her.

Steve never actually did anything.

He didn’t hit Jonathan first. He didn’t break his camera to prove a point. He didn’t write that Nancy was a slut on The Hawk even though he thought of it, even though it was his red spray paint. He had used that as an excuse to convince Nancy to come back to him.

Tommy wasn’t a fighter unless he had to be one, unless Steve made him one because Steve wasn’t a fighter. He was fucking worthless.

He was – _he_ was nothing, not just Billy.

The doors to the pool were to the left of them. It was three steps if he ran, and he wanted to run. The door usually had a lock on it, but it was unlocked today. It was like a sign from god.

It said _run, Steve._

It said, _drown, Steve._

It said, _end this, Steve._

“I need to go.”

Tommy scuffed his shoe on the ground and blew out harshly through his teeth before saying, “Come on, man.”

He grabbed his arm as he tried to walk away, “Don’t go.”

He sighed, “I just want to be friends again, man.”

“That sounds like a _you_ problem,” Steve said in a voice that sounded like it was hurting, that had echoed in whispers in that parking lot and haunted over the ice. He spoke in a voice that knew that if he was left alone, he would hurt himself, “I have to _go_.”

So, he went.

He pulled his arm out of Tommy’s laxed grip and he walked step, after step, after step with this – disassociated purpose. He walked and felt like he was outside of himself, that he was distant from Hawkins, and Tommy, and what he would do if he got through those double doors.

He wanted to _stay_.

He wanted someone to tell him that it wasn’t his fault. He wanted to be comforted, and hugged, and loved by someone that he could trust. He wanted somebody, wanted _Tommy_.

He wanted the days where he was only sad alone. He wanted the days that Tommy would steal his brother’s weed and they’d break into his parents’ liquor cabinet, and he would sit on the floor next to Steve’s bed and just talk, and talk, and talk. He wanted the Tommy that never said anything when Steve couldn’t pull himself out of bed, or when Steve came over for Christmas dinner, or when Steve broke down crying because his dad was an asshole.

He wanted to be _Steve and Tommy,_ or _Steve and Tommy and Carol._

He didn’t want to be alone anymore.

He didn’t want to _be_.

“Steve, what are you even-“ Tommy reached out for him but Steve was translucent. He was a ghost and Tommy couldn’t touch him as he slipped through the door.

The lights were dimmed, and the floors were wet, everything smelt of chlorine. It felt damp against his skin, and his coat, and his eyes. Steve breathed in and breathed out. He took a step.

The last time he was in here, Billy Hargrove grabbed his foot and made him think he was drowning. The time before that, he quit the swim team. The time before that, he won the state championship for the team.  

Barb drowned in his pool.

It wasn’t his fault. It _was_ his fault.

It could have been him.

He used to have _plans_.

King Steve was going to go to college on a swimming scholarship. His parents built a fucking pool in the backyard because Steve was a good swimmer, and had promise, and was already swimming laps around everybody at the community center at five. King Steve swam every night for hours and hours, except when Tommy comes up to his locker and says that he wants to drink, says _‘hey, make your move on Wheeler already, why don’t ya?’_

Steve swam every goddamn night in heated water except that night. It could have been him. It _should_ have been him.

His shoes squeaked against the condensation on the floor, echoing in the room and in his ears, and he walked. He took another step, and then another, and another until his toes edged up against the ledge. He stared into blue water and he thought, _no one would have noticed if it had been me._

He thought _, no one would have been hurt._

He thought, _my parents didn’t come home for four days after that night._

He thought, _I wish it had been me._

He thought about the quarry, and the cliffs, and the lake beneath with all its stories. He thought about the kids that walked onto the ice and were never seen again, the happy couples in cars that drove and didn’t stop. He thought about all the ghost stories of sad girls and how they broke apart against the water surface.

He thought about how much he _wanted_ that. He thought about all of his longing, how Billy would push him up to the edge but never over. He thought about how he didn’t have his car anymore.

He jumped.

The surface broke easily against his feet, engulfing him like a wave and a blanket, and all the nightmares that suffocated him in water. The initial shock of cold strained his muscles and his lungs, running through him with a freeze and then dissipating into comfort, contentment, want.

Steve opened his eyes beneath the water.

The confines of the pool looked nearly black in the dim lighting. It looked like his nightmares looked, shifting shadows and endless water. Everything pressed into him like everything was always pressing into him, like the Upside Down breathed and hummed, and entered into his mouth with every breath inside those tunnels.

Steve pushed himself farther beneath the surface with his arms and his legs, swimming down into the shadows with a skill that he never lost. He felt weighted in his heavy clothes, felt suffocated in the darkness as his hands pressed against the pool floor, curling his fingers in the chipped paint until it hurt.

He felt like screaming.

He felt like his lungs were screaming.

He felt like he was burning inside with the need to breathe in, breathe out. He felt like he was going to suffocate in all the ways that he was supposed to, the way that he should have.

He felt like crying.

When he couldn’t hold his breath any longer, he didn’t.

He let his muscles go lax and his eyes closed, parting his lips. He let the water pour through his lips, and fill his mouth, and let it wash down the back of his throat as he involuntarily breathed in.

He sputtered with no breath to take, feeling darkness curl into his vision and red flashing warning invade his mind. He felt scared, felt ready for this to end, felt like he didn’t _want_ this.

The surface shattered against the back of his head and hands curled into the hood of his jacket and into his collar, and he couldn’t push them away because he couldn’t _breathe_. He gasped in breath that choked him, sputtering water as he was practically hauled over the edge and onto the tile, “-fucking _idiot._ What were you thinking? Oh my god, you _moron_ -“

“Tom-“

“Shut up, Steve,” Tommy demanded of him, arms soaked all the way up to his shoulders as he shoved him back onto the tile. He yanked down the zipper on Steve’s jacket so hard he could have ripped it, “Breathe, okay? And – I don’t know, cough. You probably got water in your lungs.”

Tommy didn’t say anything else while Steve coughed and breathed and wished that he would fucking die. He didn’t do anything but sit there next to Steve, just waiting.

_God._

God, Steve – he was so fucking _stupid_.

He didn’t even know what he was trying to do anymore? He didn’t know what he wanted to accomplish because he didn’t _want_ to die. He didn’t want to _do_ anything, just – he just wanted everything to stop.

He wanted it to stop hurting.

He didn’t –

“I-“ Steve breathed out, rubbing at his wet face with his wet sleeve. He curled up on himself and then planted his feet against the ground, then –

“Fuck, really? What –“ Tommy shouted, scrambling to his feet because Steve had scrambled to his and ran. “Steve!”

The conversation in the locker room was loud, and dumb, and echoed pointlessly over a drum beat and the pounding of Steve’s heart. It echoed in his teeth and shivered violently into his bones. Honestly, just _hearing_ all the fucking noise pissed him off with how irrelevant it was.

Tom Petty’s A Woman in Love (It’s Not Me) was playing out of the old shitty cassette player in the back which didn’t really many anything except that it was his Nancy song, and the whole goddamn universe knew that. _Tommy_ knew that, hot on his heels, because it was Steve’s Laurie song, his Amy song, his Becky song.

Someone was bragging about the tape being his, and being into Tom Petty, and buying tickets to his next Indianapolis show. Someone else – _Billy_ – was saying, _“You’re not fucking special, dude, everybody – literally everybody in the whole goddamn world listens to Tom Petty. What, want a medal for being late to a party that started in 19-fucking-76?”_

Tommy was _here_.

He followed him which was also fucking annoying, his fingernails digging in sharp through Steve’s soggy jacket and his wet sweater. He was _here_ , and wanted to be Steve’s friend, and he wasn’t doing fucking _anything_ even though Steve _loved_ this song. Fucking hated this song. Put this song on every goddamn break up mixtape he ever made and cried his eyes out to.

Tommy wasn’t doing anything except touching him and Steve didn’t want anybody to fucking _touch_ him.

The radio sang, _I don’t understand the world today._

It sang, _I don’t understand what she needed._

It mocked, _I gave her everything, she threw it all away._

Steve turn around hard, checking his shoulder into Tommy’s and swinging hard. His fist ached in the impact and Tommy slipped in the puddle that they’d made, but he didn’t stay down.

Tommy had older brothers that used to torment him as a kid. Tommy knew how to throw more than just one punch. He knew how to recover from a good hit. He knew how to fight back.

Tommy wasn’t a fighter unless he had to be, unless Steve _made_ him be one.

And Steve, he knew how to take a punch.

Steve didn’t put his hands up to block when Tommy recovered, when he planted his feet and curled his fist. He closed his eyes and braced himself, but he didn’t put his hands up. He didn’t have the energy to.

Tommy didn’t hit him.

He grabbed Steve by the wet collar and shoved him back hard until his head collided with a locker, and then shook him until he opened his eyes. Tommy’s nose was bleeding, his freckles pinched together as his mouth curled into a frustrated frown.

None of it was intimidating to the monsters that Steve has seen. None of it mattered, nothing mattered when Tommy grabbed him by the jaw and demanded, “What the actual _fuck_ , Harrington?”

Not _Steve_.

He was never Steve when Tommy wanted to look cool. He wasn’t _Steve_ when Tommy was _Tommy H_. Even this wasn’t about Steve, it was about Tommy’s fucking ego, about looking cool.

Steve rolled his eyes up because they burnt, and he was cold, and he just wanted to get the clothes out of his gym locker, quit basketball, and call his mom. He wanted to _leave_ , “I’m leaving.”

“No, you’re fucking not,” Tommy snapped, something in his voice breaking. “Come on, man. What’s – _Jesus_ , you fucking terrified me, okay? Make some fucking sense, what is going on?”

Steve shoved him because Tommy wasn’t fucking _owed_ that, because he couldn’t fucking _tell_ anybody what was going on, because he told Billy and Billy was _nobody._ Jesus fucking Christ, “Get off me!”

Tommy shoved back, his face melting into frustration and he finally just _looked_ at Steve instead of at everybody else in the room. He crowded up in Steve’s space like he was going to hit him, but Tommy _wasn’t_ going to hit him.

Steve shoved him again, jamming the heel of his hand into Tommy’s chest so he would back off. He took the momentary distraction to get around Tommy, almost making it to the door without his clothes, without talking to the coach, without anything.

A hand wrapped tight around his bicep and another wrapped around his ruined wrist, pulling Steve bodily backwards into a strong hold. His wrist was squeezed so tight that he could feel his stiches _bending_. He could feel his bones grind together.

He could feel warm breath breathe against the side of his cold neck, grinning like a shark, “Hey, pretty boy.”

“Let- let go of me, Billy.”

“Hm, don’t think so, pretty boy,” He hummed in Steve’s ear, smelling like cigarette smoke and cold air. Tommy didn’t move, his fight drawn from him as Steve pulled on his arm to no avail. “Now, tell me, Tommy boy. What’s got you gals in this hissy.”

“It’s none of your bus-“

“I wasn’t _asking_ ,” Billy said in a pleasantry as thin as ice and a grip that Steve couldn’t break.  He tightened his grip on Steve’s wrist even more and Steve gritted his teeth as Billy said, “Speak carefully because I’m not in the mood to be disrespected.”

“Just – just stop, come on,” Steve said, an edge coming into his voice but it wasn’t a _dead_ sound, so Billy didn’t care. Billy didn’t care about Steve because he wasn’t a spy, he wasn’t anything but a bully. They both knew it now. “I need to _leave_.”

“Go swimmin’, Harrington?”

Billy’s earring jingled when he turned his head to look to Tommy. He raised an eyebrow because Billy was such a fucking asshole like that.

Steve licked his lips, trying to wiggle his wrist free, but Billy just adjusted his grip so his fingernails were pressed against the stitches and said impatiently, “ _Well_.”

“He-“

“Stop, Tommy,” Steve snapped, cracked, begged. “Just – stop, okay. I need everybody to stop. I’m – I’m fucking fine, okay? All the shit that you _think_ that you know is _wrong_.”

“Steve-“

“I didn’t try to fucking kill myself,” He snapped harshly. “You were my _best_ friend and you don’t even believe me. I – you’re going to believe Billy over me? He – he tried to beat up Lucas and he’s thirteen, and I-“

Billy pushed Steve back up against the lockers, slamming his face into the metal and it _hurt_. It hurt, and he was cold, and Steve wanted to cry, but that wasn’t the point. They weren’t alone.  

There weren’t that many people left in the locker room when Steve stormed in and even less than that now because practice surely had started by now. The locker room was an echo of silence, a chamber of Steve’s own breathing and Billy’s sneer, but not _just_ that.

Steve felt seen in the worst way.

There weren’t many people left in the room, but Caleb was there. Jack N. was there. Brandon was there, Tyler, Micky, Austin. All these people that were supposed to be his friends were there, that trailed behind King Steve. They did nothing now.

They just watched.

“You slit your wrist in the school parking lot,” Billy snapped, hiking Steve’s arm up behind his back, “Really looks like _nothing_ , Harrington.”

Steve realized that he doesn’t – _want_ Billy in his life, not like this, or as a friend, or a savior, demon, monster. Billy was _nothing_.

He was just an everyday bully.

He was telling people that Steve was crazy, telling Tommy because he knew that he would tell him. Tommy didn’t come talk to him because of he was worried, he did it because _Billy_ probably told him to.

Billy was _mean_ , and nothing more.

There was this horrible car crashy feeling that he was wrong, that all his actions were for no reason. He nearly _died_ for no reason. There were no spies, no government conspiracy out to get him. There was nothing but – him.

Steve pressed his lips together, “I’m not afraid of you.”

“You don’t have any reason to be.”

They were both liars.

Billy was a monster in a whole different way. He was _human_.

“Do you think that maybe it’s – it’s you?” Steve said suddenly in a rush of frozen breath. “You said that you took pity on me, so you helped me, but – but you looked so fucking scared in that parking lot and I – I fucking _know_ it’s because you feel guilty.”

“You’re a bully and you fucking realized that it means something,” Steve continued. “You think that you pushed me to the edge but you’re fooling yourself because you’re not worth it. It’s not about you.”

“I didn’t make you do anything.”

“You just – you pushed me right up against the edge,” Steve snapped, unable to pull his arm back as Billy leaned into him until it hurt. “You’re too much of a coward to do your own work. You – that’s probably why your mom did it herself.”

He could feel Billy stiffen behind him, could feel the ache in his jaw where Jonathan had punched him for saying that Will was dead. He was walking the same line and he couldn’t bring himself to care, “I’m willing to bet that you were just as – as _mean_ to her, as awful as you are to me, and – and Max, and Lucas, and everybody. She got so _tired_ of it, so – so against that edge that she did it herself to get away from _you_.”

Billy’s hand fisted in his hair, yanking his head back hard and slamming his face into the lockers. Steve knows that it’ll bruise, could feel the skin split and the blood ooze warm down his forehead. Billy pulled his arm higher up his back, hissing in his ear, “Watch yourself, Harring-“

Steve laughed manically, or he cried, or he sounded dead. He didn’t know but Billy wavered on his feet behind him, and Steve insisted, “It’s true”

Billy hissed, his fingernails biting into Steve’s wrist and into his stiches until they bent and snapped. His voice was low and dangerous in his ear, but loud enough for the room to hear, mocking, “It’s my fault that you’re so fucked up that Mommy and Daddy coming home sent you into a fucking tailspin of paranoia. You tell anybody else about the other dimension you went to? About the monsters, and spies, and the tracking device you think is in your arm?”

“Because that’s what he thought,” Billy said, head tilted to Tommy. “Little Stevie was so fucking _sure_ that the government was spying on him that he cut up his wrist.”

“Blaming me for your dumbass decisions,” He hissed back into Steve’s ear, fingers _dragging_ across the stitches until they tore, and Steve cried out. “It’s _pathetic_ how much you want me to beat you up, Harrington. If you want to die, do it yourself, coward.”

“Hey – back up,” Tommy said, voice wavering but Billy’s grip was already off Steve, like he wasn’t worth holding. Billy stormed out before Tommy grabbed Steve’s hand, his cuts were already starting to heal and the bleeding was minable.

Steve felt like crying when he saw his wrist because _everybody_ saw his wrist, because surely, the scarring was going to be worse now.

Tommy touched his shoulder, but Steve pulled away. He shoved him away when Tommy reached towards him again, and then he ran. He took the first door he could find outside, and ran still in his wet clothes and with his bleeding face.

He ran until he couldn’t breathe, until everything caught up with him and nearly took him down to the sidewalk with tears. He ran until he couldn’t, and then he walked.

He was still walking, arms wrapped in his frozen clothes and fingers numb, when a truck pulled up beside him. The window rolled down and Hopper called out, “Kid, what the hell are you doing?”

“I don’t know,” Steve said with a sniffle, blaming it on the cold, and the pain, and the wet clothes. His wrist was still kind of bleeding, “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

“Get in the car,” Hopper said, leaning over to push the door open. Steve didn’t have any reason to fight it, so he got in. He watched Hopper turn the heat up before saying, “Kid, let me see that.”

“It’s going to scar,” Steve said, voice cracking. He pitched forward with a silent sob, covering his face. “I was wrong about everything, I was so fucking wrong.”

“Kid,” Hopper’s voice was warm and strong, and Steve just crumbled more. He couldn’t fight the tears or Hopper’s hand on his when he pulled his bleeding wrist towards him, “It’s not too bad, some Band-Aids can hold you over until you see a doctor.”

Hopper cleaned him up, bandaging his wrists and the cut on his forehead. He spoke softly and often like Hopper never did. He told him, “Where do you want to go?”

 _Nowhere_. “Home.”

Steve didn’t say anything else for the rest of the journey and Hopper didn’t tell him that people were worried about him, or that it would be okay, or _anything_. Hopper thought he was crazy just like everybody else.

“I think I’m really messed up.”


	26. Chapter 26

There was an Elvis song on the radio.

Something soft. Something wintery blue. Something crooning.

It seeped from the speakers like a whisper, like smoke. It murmured into the silence and warbled into the cold air, caressing his frozen cheek and his hurt wrist, and his damaged heart like a lost friend, like understanding.

The song breathed into his ear, warm and husky. It crawled into his heart and into all the cracks left in his soul with a blue melody and a steady strummed guitar. Steve felt _seen_ by the voice on the radio, felt understood.

It sung _, you’d have taken the time to show me, I wouldn’t be lonely._

It sung, _is it something that’s inside me, I’m so lonely._

It sung, _tried so hard each time, each time I just can’t make it._

It sung, _I’m, I’m leavin’._

Steve was starting to understand facts that he already knew.

Everything was clicking into place for him. It was all dawning into his sight, settling inside of him and expanding because Steve was never stupid, he was just slow, but he got it now. He always knew but now he understood.

It was never going to be a Demogorgon that killed him. He was never going to die in the Byers house surrounded by the smell of gasoline, never going to die in a battle for mankind or the safety of small children. It was never going to happen at the teeth of a Demo-dog or the Mind Flayer, or anything that could crawl through hell.

The government wasn’t after him.

He knew that now.

They didn’t want his blood or his broken body, or his useless mind. The only thing that’d wanted from him was his signature on their forms and for him to keep his mouth shut. There were spies before, but they were gone now, and Billy Hargrove had never been anything more than a high school bully.

It was _Hawkins_ that was the problem.

If Hell was a place, it would be Hawkins.

It was _this_ town that was going to get him killed, that was suffocating him and hollowing him. It was this town that would murder him cold.

It wasn’t just a funk that he couldn’t get out of or a string of bad luck plaguing him for the last two years, bad luck was _weaved_ into the city streets. It was dug deep beneath the surface of the town and it _festered_ there. It rotted the town, infected the water and the minds, and god knows what else.

In the same sense that they lost Barb, and Benny’s Burgers, and Bob from Radio Shack, Hawkins lost its good reputation. Hawkins made national news for its missing kid and its murderous national lab.

Those people died without even a ripple and they were _important_.

No one even cared.

It was Hawkins that ruined him.

It wasn’t the cold, or seasonal depression, or some kind of chemical imbalance. It wasn’t the spies that played mad scientists in his backyard with things that no one understood. It was the _people,_ the ones that Steve grew up with for eighteen fucking years.

The people that knew that he was all alone in the house on the hill and had been for _years_ , that knew his parents’ reputation and their traveling habits, and didn’t even _ask_ if he was okay. The people that did nothing more than call the fire department when he set off his smoke detectors trying to learn how to cook, that called the police because he was being too loud. The people that _tsked_ at his irresponsibility.

The people that had a lot to say about his bad behavior and his fancy car and rolled their eyes when a girl went missing in his pool. The people that turned their heads at his bruised face and his impending breakdown and invalidated his feelings because his parents had money.

All these people in Hawkins’ _‘community,’_ that stuck together through thick and thin because that was the Indiana way, the Hawkins way, but didn’t bother to show up to Barb’s funeral. The ones that claimed that they were good friends, the complained less about Benny’s Burger’s being shut down than about the unsolved murder case. The ones that made fun of Will.

It was Tommy, and Carol, and Billy, and Nicole, and all the girls that fooled around with him because he was cool and it made them look cool, but didn’t want anything serious. It was Ted Wheeler, and Susan Mayfield, and whoever the fuck Billy’s dad was because he surely fucked that kid up.

It was all the misery and the mystery, and all the goddamn loneliness that traversed in his big ugly house looming indifferent and unseen somewhere on the horizon. It was _heartache_ that he could feel in every corner of this town. It was death.

It was his grandmother buried in the cemetery and his grandfather right next to her, and the fact that no one cried at their funerals. It was Benny, and Barb, and Bob rotting beneath their feet and how he was _always_ aware of it.

It was all those black body bags on the news.

It was the mangled and half-eaten corpses that he knew lied beneath the black plastic as they dragged them and stacked them high outside of the National Lab, all played across the evening news. It was the sick way that he always wondered how many people didn’t make it into bags?

How many people disappeared into the ether, into the Upside Down just like Barb, and didn’t return? How many people were devoured so fully by faceless monsters that their families didn’t get bodies back?

How many families didn’t know the truth and would never know the truth?

Hawkins was _drowning_ in the blood its people.

Steve _knew_ that Hawkins was the problem. He knew it for a long damn time. He knew that he and this town couldn’t coexist anymore, that it was too big and too small, and ripped in all the wrong places. It was the reason that he felt like clawing out of his skin every day.

He knew it in that parking lot, that he had to get out of here. He had to be done and be gone, leave. He knew that he _needed_ to get out.

He knew it that day in the parking lot.

He had been trying to leave when Billy had crowded up against him.

He had wanted to just get in his car and drive before he did something that he couldn’t take back. He had just wanted a little peace of mind and to feel safe in his own skin, to be able to _breathe_.

He just wanted to get in his car and drive until he broke the speed limits on the way out of town. He had wanted to call his parents from some motel and tell them that he was leaving for good, or not call them.

He had just wanted to drive as far from Hawkins as he could get and never come back. He _needed_ that.

There were no spies after him, there never were. There wasn’t a conspiracy to capture, torture, maim him. All the Demogorgons and the Demo-dogs were locked away hungry behind a gate that could not be open.

There was nothing left, but _him_.

He was getting dangerous again, like in that parking lot and on the ice, because Steve wasn’t a fighter. He was never going to be a good with his fists or at planting his feet, and when there was no one left to hurt him, he was only going to hurt himself.

It was only him, and Hawkins, and people that stood miles apart from him in the hallways. There was nothing close enough to take shelter in, or seek warmth, or to protect himself from all this _stuff_ that was maddeningly pushing him up to the brink.

There was nothing stopping him from pushing himself over the edge, from finding something sharp and _stabbing_ it into himself until he couldn’t anymore. There was nothing stopping him from slicing what was left of himself into shreds and cutting out what he hated, which was _all_ of him.

There was _nothing_ , and it was truly terrifying.

He got himself pushed, and pushed, and pushed so _far_ away by other people and his own self-sabotaging. There was no home to find his way back to. There was no one there. 

There wasn’t a gate between him and ending his life. There was absolutely nothing stopping him, except himself and Steve was woefully unreliable.

He was going to hurt himself again.

He almost _died_. It was fact that kept playing inside of his head on a loop. He almost died or _no_ reason. He almost died because of his own delusions.

It wasn’t his fault. He had tried to leave.

He tried to get himself out of this bad place and make himself safe, and he couldn’t. It wasn’t his fault.

Steve blinked hard, sniffled harder.

He wiped his face on the blanket that Hopper had pulled off the floor in his backseat and demanded that he stay covered up with it before he catch his death. It was scratchy ugly plaid like Jonathan’s coat, and smelt like gasoline and cigarette smoke, and a little like maple syrup.

It smelt like Hopper and winter, like home and a house in the woods, and people that cared. It scratched against his cheek like a stinging slap of all the things that money would never buy. Steve hated it.

He hated all of this.

He hated Hopper.

He thought, _of course._

He thought, _who else would soundtrack my downfall better than the has-been king._

He thought, _there was nothing merciful about a killing, a sacrifice meant nothing in the long run._

He thought, _I’m leaving._

“You can – you can let me out here.”

Hopper didn’t say anything for the whole car ride up to this point and he still didn’t say anything. What was there event to _say?_

What could _possibly_ be said?

Steve knew what he looked like. He knew how off the rails he sounded and what people must think when they look at him with heartbreak in their eyes. They felt sorry for him. They though that he was crazy, or sick, or _whatever_.

Hopper had a lab experimented daughter that could move shit with the power of nose bleeds and a weirdo murder cabin out in the middle of nowhere, and _he_ thought that Steve was too fucking weird. He thought that he was broken beyond all repair, and he was right.

There was no going back from this.

No one could fix the mess that Steve made, not even Hopper.

Steve _ruined_ his wrists. He ruined his reputation in a town where a reputation fucking mattered. He ruined his grades, and his senior year, and every relationship he ever fucking had. He was akin to the fucking _Hindenburg_ in terms of social suicide.

There was nothing left for anybody to do but just watch the carnage and destruction play out. There was nothing left to do than watch in horror as it burnt away. There was no way to fix this, to fix _him_.

They were all too late.

Everybody was too fucking late to pretend that they cared now. They stood there and watched his self-destruction, they laid pressure on the wrong cracks and acted surprised when he broke. They watched his descend into something awful and ugly, and offered no fucking help when he pulled himself back with cuts on his wrist.

They wanted to help _now_?

No.

All anybody wanted was the credit. They just wanted to be able to say that they took the mess that Steve was and add some polish. They wanted to buff out the scratches and make him look brand new, wanted to _tsk_ at his self-destruction and then pat themselves on the back and say that they tried when it all fucking fails. All of it was bullshit.

Steve swallowed hard, “Just – just anywhere. You don’t have to drive all the way there. I know the way.”

Hopper continued to drive over snow and slush, and Elvis crooned into John Denver on the radio. Steve’s throat felt oily and dry all at once, and his mouth twisted into a frown, “Hopper.”

“You’re soaking wet, kid,” Hopper finally said. “Just sit tight.”

“I – my dad, uh, said that you played on the football team in high school,” Steve said. His voice wavered with something, he just wasn’t sure what. He wasn’t sure where he was even going with this, “You took the team all the way to championships one year, quarterback.”

Hopper’s eyes flickered over to him and then back to the road, “Yeah, I did.”

“A big star,” Steve continued, swallowing down the abundance of saliva pooling under his tongue. He felt like he was going to be sick. “Had a full-ride to Norte Dame and everything, threw it away.”

“I blew out my shoulder at the end of the season,” Hopper said. “Enlisted in the army instead.”

“You were supposed to be somebody.”

“I _am_ somebody,” He told him and then sighed. “Look kid, I’m gonna play it to you straight. Your dad was a hard ass in school, wasn’t happy with anything and I’m betting that he’s still like that. Just because you’re not being who he wants you to be, doesn’t mean that you’ve failed.”

“I didn’t-“ Steve breathed out, feeling a sharp pain in his chest. “If I wanted a psychology lesson than I’d talk to my mom, an actually psychiatrist, not – not _you_.”

“Why don’t you do that, kid.”

“Why don’t you shut up?” Steve snapped, and then breathed out. He didn’t even have enough fire in him to have this argument that he started, “Can you just… Just let me out here, I can walk the rest of the way. It’s not far.”

“Kid, I’m not dropping you off two blocks from your house when you’re soaking wet,” Hopper said in a voice that was final.

Steve knew that he should stop, that he should sit back and be grateful that somebody even offered him a ride, but he was – _dangerous_. He was really fucking dangerous and no one realized it.

Hopper slammed on the breaks when Steve pushed open the passenger door, fingers brushing the blanket over his shoulders and then into the back of his shirt. It didn’t stop Steve from pitching forward, shoulder crashing into the glove compartment and head hitting the dashboard, “Son of a-“

Steve’s limbs didn’t want to work right, feeling numb and frozen, and he just – melted back into the seat when Hopper pushed him there. Hopper didn’t take his hand off his collar when he reached with his other to close the door.

His voice was stern when he slammed down the lock, “Don’t do that again.”

Hopper was parked in the middle of the street, two blocks from his house, and he wasn’t moving. He was just staring at Steve with his hand still gripping strong onto his wet collar, and Steve already felt small enough without Hopper’s gaze.

He prepared himself for whatever Hopper was going to say. He prepared himself for saying the inevitable, for _you’re a bad influence on those kids. Stay away from them._

For, _you’re a goddamn pathetic little mess. No amount of money could fix you._

For, _this is the last stop, no one wants to help you anymore._

For, _it’ll be an act of mercy on all of us, drying. Just do it._

For, _coward_.

Hopper cleared his throat and asked bluntly, “Do you want to go home?”

“…What?” Steve blinked, his brows pulling together in confusion and surprised. “Oh… what?”

“If there’s something going on at home, or – if you don’t feel safe than I’ll take you out to my cabin,” He said. “Or, I can take you to Joyce’s, or hell, Henderson’s house, even one of your probably dumbass friends. I don’t know. I can call your parents and come up with some excuse. Just say the word.

 _What word_?

“Just – say the word,” Hopper repeated. “I won’t make you go home if you don’t want to.”

Steve’s mind whispered into his ear and curled into his chest. It carved out a place between sorrow and exhaustion, between paranoia and rational thought, whispering with doubt, _sure they don’t just want to lure you out into the woods?_

Shut up.

 _It’s so cold even still,_ his mind supplied. _All those twists and turns, and trees for miles. Hopper knows the woods better than anybody._

 _Would anybody even look for you?_ His mind asked in his ear, curling doubt into his jaw and down his spine. _No one would find your body until you were bug infested and ugly, if they find you at all._

_Kind Steve went mad along the trees. King Steve died in the mud and the dirt, surrounded by nobody. King Steve was a ghost, like the girls that jumped from the quarry and the kids that disappeared on the ice._

_King Steve had no friends, just wolves in disguise._

_They want to sell you out to the spies and the –_ No.

“Shut up.”

“Kid?”

“Just – just shut up, okay?” Steve breathed out. He felt _tired_ , and he couldn’t think because swimming had always made him tired and Billy always exhausted him, and he was so fucking cold. “Just be quiet, stop trying to help me.”

“Harrington, it’s my job to help,” Hopper said, like Steve didn’t already _know_ that no one ever cared about him unless it was by some inane sense of fucking duty, like they weren’t _pretending_. “You’re not inconveniencing me by having me do my job, kid, and – we’ve been through enough shit that we all owe you a debt, so no one is going to let you go through this alone.”

“You go through everything alone,” Steve said harshly and then breathed out. He shook Hopper’s hand off his shoulder and rubbed his eyes with his fingertips. He was beyond being _helped_ and it was just, “Pointless, sorry. I- I’m-“

“Don’t apologize to me, kid, just tell me-“

“Drive me out of state,” Steve breathed out, looking Hopper dead in the eyes and _seeing_ that he wasn’t going to do that. Something kind of cracked in Steve because _see_ , no one was actually going to help him.

 No one was going to do what he actually needed.

Steve was dangerous in this mindset and he knew it. He knew it as he curled his hands into fist and uncurled them, as John Deaver changed to Roy Orbison on the radio, as he breathed. In and out. In and out.

“I just needed a ride, thanks,” Steve said in a voice that sounded cold and dead, and frozen. “You can’t help me.”

“Harrington-“

Steve shook the blanket from his shoulders, pulled the lock up and the door open. He dropped out of the truck into the snow and ran, hearing Hopper curse in the distance. He ran between houses and down slopes, and into the woods he never wanted to be.

Hopper didn’t follow him, or he did and just couldn’t keep up.

Steve didn’t particularly care. 

He just ran, and he felt – _free_.

He felt like he had shut the door on The Party and the monsters, and everything that had broken him. He remembered what Dustin had said about triggers and finding them, and then avoiding them so – he had to _quit_.

He couldn’t be a member of The Party anymore, if he ever was one. He couldn’t wrap himself up in their secrecy and mystery, and supernatural _stuff_. All it did was remind him of dying and losing, and being so fucking lonely.

He could do that. He could separate himself from the rest of them and then leave Hawkins behind. He could be free.

He could do this, and he wouldn’t have to hurt himself anymore. He wouldn’t have to be this emotional.

He could do that.

Steve knew the way home through the woods, had walked the same paths when he was a kid and didn’t know better. He was freezing and cold, but _relieved_. He was _done_.

He was leaving.

Steve made it all the way to the front door and slid his key into the lock before he saw blue eyes and curly hair out of the corner of his eye. He froze and then he unfroze, and then asked, “Nancy?”

 _Fate_ _was the wrong word to use_ , he thought absently about seeing her in the parking lot after school. He thought it as he looked at her _here_ , bundled up in a heavier sweater and mittens, and a knitted scarf that she made herself.

Fate was the wrong word because it wasn’t fate, see her there. It wasn’t fate now, it wasn’t divine intervention from the universe. It was Nancy’s intervention.

She was right – _there_.

She was standing at the edge of the porch, scrapping snow off the side of her boots like she always did at her own house. She was standing there with her rosy cheeks, her sweater and her mittens, and a thermos of something warm steaming in her hand.

She was there with her grating blue eyes and her razor frown, etching and carving a place inside of such a humiliating day. _Of course_.

 _God_ , he didn’t have the energy for this.

He didn’t want this.

“Oh my god!” She exclaimed, shattering the silence with a step forward. “Oh my god, Steve! You’re – you’re soaking wet! What happened?”

“Nothing happened,” He said thickly, fingers frozen to his key in the lock. He wasn’t able to turn it, he couldn’t bring himself to turn it. “What are you doing here?”

“Did you _walk_ here with wet clothes on?” She asked instead of answering him, like she didn’t even _hear_ him. She reached forward with her mitten-cover hand for the cut bandaged on his forehead, and then her eyes dropped down to his wrists, “Did you – did someone hurt you?”

Steve breathed in and Nancy’s voice dropped into something stern and seriously, “Who did this, Steve?”

Steve was tempted to say that it was Jonathan just to see how immediately she would defend him, temped to say that it was Billy or Tommy, or – fucking Hopper. He was really tempted to tell her that he did it himself because he knew that she’d believe it.

He signed instead and rubbed his numb fingers over his damp sleeves, and Nancy said, “Steve.”

“ _What_ are you doing here?” He repeated his question tiredly. “I thought – didn’t Jonathan tell you that I didn’t want to talk? He should have made it clear that I don’t – I can’t do that right now. I don’t want-“

“A tutor,” She said softly. Her blue eyes went a little wide and then she looked at her feet, blinking as she breathed out, “I’m such an idiot. Of course, you don’t – I’m so sorry.”

He blinked, “What?”

“I – I became a tutor a couple months ago with the school’s program and I thought –“ She shook her head. “My mom told me when I got home from school today that you had called about wanting a tutor to get back on top of your classes. I didn’t – I thought it was weird but, I don’t know, I thought we were getting back to normal.”

 _Why_ , Steve almost said.

 _What was ever fucking normal about us_ , he almost said.

 _I would never call you,_ he almost said.

Steve had no idea what she was even talking about, so he said dumbly, “I just got home.”

“I see that, I-“ She shook her head again like she could hear all of his unsaid words. “It was dumb. I just – you used to call me about your English homework and your college essays, and I thought that-“

“I didn’t call you,” He said it anyways. “I wouldn’t do that.”

“I know,” She breathed out and wrapped her mittens tighter around her thermos. “I know that, I – sometimes people call individual tutors instead of the tutoring office. I thought-“

“It – my parents,” Steve breathed out, remembering all the times that his mother had said, _‘she is such a smart girl, don’t you think?’_ and his father had said, _‘I don’t see why she can’t still help you with your essays._ ’ He thought about a lot of things and it made him feel empty, “My parents must have called you.”

“That makes more sense,” She said in that kind of way that Nancy told jokes that never really landed. She bounced on her toes and bit her lip, “If you need help – need a tutor. I can give you the number to some of the other girls, or I could help you anyways. Just for today, since I’m here. If you don’t think that it’ll work out than we never have to do it again.”

“Wow, thanks for thinking of my feelings, Nancy,” He responded automatically, sounding bitter and sarcastic, and not fucking caring. “First time for everything.”

Her brows pulled together, “Steve, that isn’t fair.”

 _It wasn’t fair when you cheated on me,_ he thought about saying. _It wasn’t fair when you saddled me with guilt for something that I didn’t do, that I had no control over._

 _It wasn’t fair that you lied to me about loving me,_ he thought about saying. _It wasn’t fair when you brought your boyfriend into my hospital room and shoved your relationship into my face._

_It was not fair that you thought that I owed you my time and my attention, and my forgiveness when you screwed me over._

_It wasn’t fair to take my heartache, and fuck ups, and my ruined fucking wrists and placed that all on your shoulders. It wasn’t fair to expect me to comfort you through **my** attempted suicide. _

He should have said, _okay_.

Should have said, _whatever,_ or _I’m sorry,_  or _I wasn’t being fair._

“I’m not here to comfort you, Nancy,” He said in a voice as cold and as dead, and as fucking exhausted as he felt. It was icy down to his _bones_ and he was not going back. “If you want a shoulder to cry on and someone to tell you that you didn’t do anything wrong than go find your boyfriend because that isn’t me anymore.”

“Steve-“

“I _loved_ you, Nancy,” He snapped. “And you told me that you loved me, and it was a lie. I – I fucking almost died in the junk yard protecting _your_ brother and _his_ friends, and you were – were screwing around with Jonathan.”

“I wasn’t-“

“ _Don’t_ ,” He breathed out, pinching the bridge of his nose until he could feel it in his fingers. “Just – it doesn’t even _matter_ anymore. None of this even matters, I understand why you couldn’t love me. Okay, but all I was to you was a placeholder for Jonathan and that hurts. It just – I don’t _owe_ you anything, Nancy, and you’re not getting anything from me.”

“I’m not going to apologize because I don’t forgive you,” He told her. “You – What’s not fair is that you _expect_ me too because – because, I don’t even know because you wouldn’t expect it if it was the other way around.”

“You wrote-“

“I called you a slut, once. I apologized a hundred times for it. You _cheated_ on me after telling me that all the times that you said that you loved me, you were lying. It’s fucking different.”

He breathed out and rubbed his eyes, “We’re not friends and I _don’t_ want to be.”

“Steve, I just want to-“

“I don’t need your help.”

Steve turned the key into the lock and pushed the door open. He slammed it shut, listening to the reverberation in the wood without breaking his stride. He didn’t even breath, or blink, or knock on the door to his father’s office. He didn’t even stop to take off his jacket that was retaining water and freezing him so much that it hurt.

He breathed in. He breathed out.

He felt like fucking _screaming_.

His dad was in his office like he was always in his office, and Steve didn’t even get a word in edgewise before he was being asked, “What are your plans, Steven?”

Steve honestly didn’t – “What?”

“This charade, it’s over, _now_ ,” He said like he somehow had executive rights on deciding _anything_ in Steve’s life. “You got what you wanted, Steven. You upset your mother, you made your point, so what’s the plan? What are you planning, Steven?”  

 _‘Fucking tell me, Harrington,_ ’ Billy’s voice goaded inside his head. _‘Tell me what you were doing then? Slicing your wrist for fun?’_

His father and Billy shared an uncomfortable number of characteristics. They were both assholes, both mean for no reason, bullies. Steve thought that was somehow fitting, that it somehow made sense that his father was just like his tormentor.

He shrugged his shoulders stiffly, “I didn’t do anything to hurt anybody. I did what I thought I – what I thought was right.”

His father doesn’t acknowledge was Steve even said, doesn’t ask a single question about _why_ he thought that was the right thing to do. Steve wished that for once he would, that he would care.

He wished that they’d have this conversation because Steve _needed_ to have it. He needed help because he didn’t want to be dangerous anymore, he just – he wanted to be _normal_ and normal kids could go to their parents when they felt like he did.

Hell, even if his dad said that _yeah,_ Steve had been right all along. The government had paid big and they wanted him gone. Even if he said what they both already knew, that Steve was nothing more than a family disappointment.

It would suck to hear but Steve _wanted_ it. He wanted to hear his father said that he was disappointed that his son didn’t just off himself, that he was disappointed in Steve’s fucking follow through.

Steve watched his father shake his head slowly, speaking slowly like his son was a moron, “About your future, Steve. What are your plans about the _future_? Presumably, you still wish to have one?”

He said it like Steve made the fucking choice to be alive right now, that his existence was an annoyance. Steve gritted his teeth and pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth until he felt like he was screaming.

His father moved around his desk and pulled out the acceptance letter from Indiana State that Steve had trashed, “Honestly, Steven. You _applied_ to a college, at least. Are you planning on doing _anything_ with that, or do you want us to spend all our days taking care of you?”

“Taking care of-“

“This is an opportunity for you to grow and have some responsibility,” He continued. “You need a degree if I’m going to get you a job. I set you up with a tutor after talking to your teachers, that little girlfriend of yours so maybe you take some interest in your education. Your grades are abysmal. Honestly, Steve, what have you-“

 _God_ , he thought.

What an asshole. No one talked to people like this.

Jesus.

It kind of just hit him all at once – like Billy Hargrove in his room and Billy Hargrove in front of the Byers house, and Jonathan Byers when he really deserved it – what the problem really was. It was him.

No one’s life changed.

The world almost _ended_ , and no one batted an eye.

The world got up the next day. The sun rose and dawn broke, and nothing fucking changed. The government rolled in and there was a _massacre_ at the Hawkins National Lab and a cover story about poison in the water, and it all played out on TV, but _nothing_ changed.

No one wanted the world to suddenly get topsy-turvy, no one wanted it to open up and spit out monsters. No one wanted to acknowledge that they lived right next door to a hell dimension with a faulty gate. No one wanted that, so no one _accepted_ it.

So, it _didn’t_ happen, and nothing changed.

Steve had always been these archetypes for so long and now he wasn’t compatible with them. That was the problem.

He wasn’t who he was anymore because he _had_ changed, but his world didn’t. He – he didn’t fit into his own movie anymore.

He was fucking _Hamlet_ placed into The Great Gatsby, fucking Cinderella put into Friday the Thirteenth. He didn’t belong in his life anymore because he _changed_ , and nothing else did.

It was uncomfortable and kind of weird that he wasn’t playing these roles anymore. He wasn’t King Steve anymore. He wasn’t the handsome son anymore, wasn’t the disappointed son, wasn’t _anything_ anymore.

He was supposed to be the well-adjusted boy.

He was supposed to be the handsome kid, the cool kid, the rich guy. He was supposed to James and Angela Harrington’s success story because no one would buy a psychology book from a woman that couldn’t raise her own kid.

How did they plan to spin this now?

How were they going to fix Steve – fix this?

They acted like Steve was such a fuck up, such a fucking – like everything that he was doing was just to spite them when he wasn’t. They never fucking noticed when he was trying to spite them, they never noticed anything until it benefited them to notice.

They acted like he was awful, it was bullshit.

If Steve was truly awful – if he was the worst that he could ever be. If he was every horrible thing that people said about King Steve and that Nancy had said drunk in that bathroom. If he was as dramatic and stupid, and pathetic, and selfish as they all thought that he was then he would have let those kids die.

He would have told Billy that Max was inside, he would have let them crawl into that hole alone. He would have gone _home_. He would have let Nancy and Jonathan get themselves killed the year before. He wouldn’t have even cared.

If he was as awful as they _pretended_ that he was than he would’ve climbed through Nancy’s window when she broke his heart and his world grew too dark to see, and he lost all hope. He would have sat on her pretty bedding with her stupid meaningless birthday tape.

He would have taken her gun from her closet and let the metal and gunpowder sit on his tongue. He would have taken the safety off, taken her safety, and her reputation, and buried her beneath the guilt she so desperately wanted.

But, he didn’t do any of that.

Because he _wasn’t_ selfish.

It was not selfish to want to be seen, and loved, and to belong.

Steve thought that he deserved to be in The Party once, thought that because they fought the same monsters that they were all on the same pages, but they weren’t even in the same libraries.

Steve thought that he deserved a level of respect and loyalty, and love when he wasn’t a lifelong friend, or a brother, or a science experiment in a new-found family. He was Steve Harrington, fucking King Steve.

He was the asshole boyfriend, the useless babysitter, the characters that died bloody, and painfully, and didn’t further the plot.

He deserved to die.

He wasn’t a part of this story anymore, _his_ story. He wasn’t those characters anymore because he wasn’t a character. He didn’t fit the archetypes that he wasn’t supposed to, so he was nobody.

“Steven, are you even listening?”

When his father sat his hand on his shoulder to get his attention, Steve shoved him. He went against his character type and fought back even though he wasn’t a fighter, and he got slapped in response.

His father’s face looked _old_ , and he looked very tired as he reached forward and took Steve’s face in his big hand carefully, “Steve-“

Steve shoved him and smacked his hand away, and he got shoved up against the desk with his arm pressed to his chest and a hand at his throat. He almost laughed. He almost let the words fall from his lips, almost smiled, almost grinned.

He almost said the words, _do it._

He almost said, _you want to._

With his father’s impassive face twisted into a frustrated snarl and his big hand at his throat, looking into Steve’s fearless eyes. Steve almost said, _‘do it, beat me. Knock sense into me. Kill me. Fucking see me.’_

He didn’t.

He thought that his father got it, that he could see what Steve could see, what he already knew. There was no going back.

They made their beds.

They would lie in them one way or another.


	27. Chapter 27

For a second, he was alone in the universe.

Vast oceans stretched as far as he was willing to touch, and time stretched further beyond that. Seconds passed into minutes, into hours, into eternities without a breath or a sound. It was just him.

There were no monsters. There were no spies.

There was no violent back endless expansion, no creatures lurking beneath. There was no current to swim against. There was just him, and blue, and no party that needed protected or rescued. There were no holes to jump into.

Hopper wasn’t standing in his doorway in this universe, wasn’t talking to his mother with arms crossed and a frown. His eyes weren’t piercing into Steve’s when he stumbled from his father’s office, they didn’t look concerned.

Hopper didn’t exist in this universe, so he didn’t need to check to see if Steve wasn’t freezing to death in the woods. Hopper didn’t exist, so his mother didn’t feel to need to make a _production_ of noticing her son’s wet clothes and blue lips. No ‘ _what on Earth happened to you, Stevie.’_

There was no Nancy Wheeler on his front porch in these minutes, hours, eternities. She was not in his front hall to be witness to his mother’s _caring_ , wasn’t standing at the bottom of the stairs with the telephone pressed to her ear. There was no time that her blue eyes burrowed into his soul and her comment glided like a razor across his eardrum, _‘I’m just using the phone and then I’ll be gone, like you want.’_

There was no regret acidic in his stomach, no guilt eating up through his throat. There was no exhausting stairs to climb, no nothing.

He didn’t have blood dried on his wrist in this universe, no stinging pain, no forming scars. There was no realization that the relationship he had with Nancy, that he built his entire future on had always been doomed to fail.

There wasn’t relief upon realization.

There was nothing.

It was just him in the universe.

It was just him, alone.

For a moment, it was only him in this big empty universe.

For a moment, he was okay with that.

Relieved.

He could scream in this universe and no one would hear it. He could open his mouth and suck in the galaxies, and spit them out until everything was ruined. He could shriek, hideous and ugly, and horrifyingly shattered.

He could break his jaw screaming. He could shatter his eardrums and pour all his heartache into indifference. He could be done with it.

He could weep, get teary-eyed and ugly. He could let tears pool in the corners of his eyes and bawl, or be angry, or just _exist_ in a way that was unfiltered and loud, that wasn’t made pretty for human consumption.

He could go to the ends of the earth and die there, and no one would ever find him because no one would exist. He could live up to no expectations, untether himself from what he was _supposed_ to be, and no one would be disappointed.

No one would be _there_.

He could do anything, and no one would _see_ it.

It was almost liberating.

It was almost sad.

His eyes blinked open to swimming ocean blue and the crack in the ceiling. He opened his mouth and let the water fill him, and then scrambled for a grip onto cold porcelain. He pulled himself upwards and forward, letting the warm water pour from his mouth and rush down his face in waves.

His knees knocked against the side of the tub and the cold air shivered down his spine. He squeezed his fingers around the porcelain and then let go. He breathed in.

His fingers no longer felt frozen, just tingling like the skin had been peeled away with ice. He breathed out.

He slumped against the back of the tub, watching the air steam off the top of the water’s surface, off his exposed pink skin and the hair hanging in his face. He felt sick with the warmth.

For a moment, he had been alone but now he wasn’t.

The water had blocked out the sound, but now he was surrounded by it again.

His universe was crowded with the sound of his mother’s heels clicking across all the creaks in the hardwood just beyond the bathroom door. He could hear the furnace running at full blast and Nancy still at the bottom of the stairs.

He could hear his father’s faint fucking _pretending_ as he apologized to her for Steve’s misbehavior, making excuses like either of them deserved excuses. He could hear the blatant way that his father assured her that _of course_ , they still wanted her to be his tutor.

Steve ducked his head beneath the water’s surface again, missing whatever response that Nancy gave him as the world plunged back into a muted silence. He liked to think that Nancy was as smart as he always thought that she was, that she saw through his father and turned him down flat.

He liked to imagine that she said plainly in veiled nicety, _‘Sorry, Mr. Harrington, this is really fucked up and you suck.’_

Hopper wouldn’t have stuck around very long, not when the only part of his duty was to make sure that he didn’t have some dumbass kid freezing to death in the woods. It was just a job to pretend to care.

It was a job, and he fulfilled the requirement.

He would have left already.

Steve wasn’t frozen anymore.

His lungs ached, and his chest just hurt, and his wrist had been rubbed red in the hot water and it _burnt_ , but he wasn’t frozen anymore. He was feeling more physically than he’d felt in months in any capacity.

He felt _warm_ in rose scented bubble bath.

His mother was just outside the door, pacing like she only ever did when she was having writer’s block. He could hear her muttering to herself so guessed that she probably did.

Steve come only _assume_ that it was a bad case of writer’s block considering her own son has provided enough teenage angst to fill a library.

It wasn’t like she could be broken up about him because it wasn’t like his parents ever fucking _cared_ about their kid or thought enough about him to remember to pick him up from school even after he reminded them. He could only _assume_ that it probably had to do with her writing because neither of his parents had the capacity to care about anything other than their careers.

He pushed himself out of the water again and gasped on a chilled breath, rubbing at his eyes with a soapy hand. He let his hand fall naturally to his cheek and the phantom touch of heat that still rested there, the sting of his father’s hand.

He could still feel the touches of the unexpected slap. It hadn’t even been all that _surprising_ , and in comparison, to Billy Hargrove and Demo-dogs, and the damage that he’d done to himself, it hadn’t even _hurt_.

Steve knew that they had been building up to some kind of blow up for years now, that his father was going to keep nitpicking him and he was going to keep disappointing everybody, and it would explode in one way or another. He kind of always assumed that they would come to blows with words and screaming, and it would end with distance because he wasn’t a fighter, and neither was his father.

Being slapped made better sense.

With the way that the last two years of his life has gone, it made total sense that his father finally loosened his strict persona and absentee parenting enough to have a genuine violent reaction. Honestly, Steve was surprise that he didn’t end up in a hospital with the progression of beatings that he’d taken.

Steve moved his hand down from his cheek, ghosting his fingers across his jaw and the touch that had been there too. He could still feel the soft pads of his father’s fingertips from where he almost caressed his jaw after the slap, checking for damages because Steve was _after all_ , the handsome son.

Slit wrists and scars could be forgotten under dress shirts and sweaters but a cut on the face from his own hand would ruin his worse than anything could. Steve could feel the soft gentle touch of a man filled with a small amount of regret, that was already forgetting the role that he played.

His father was a master manipulator, but he wasn’t evil.

He wasn’t a soulless demon, or a hungry faceless monster. He wasn’t anything that could ever truly scare Steve anymore, just an asshole.

He was a bad father and a shitty person that demanded from everybody perfection and the impossible. Steve fucking hated him, but that was different from being evil.

Hawkins National Lab was evil, his father was just a grade-A dick.

Steve remembered his mother talking _at_ him once, working aloud through a section of the book she was writing as she paced the hall. He had hung on her every word like she would quiz him. He remembered _wanting_ her to quiz him, and wanting her to smile at him, and wanting her to notice how much he was paying attention.

He remembered her glasses tipping down her nose as she stood over the desk and the clicking of her typewriter. He remembered listening to her mutter about how there was a double standard in child rearing and the effects on development.

Little girls were encouraged to be affectionate, and be emotional, and grow up soft under their fathers’ protection, he remembered her saying. Little boys didn’t get the same luxury.   

Little boys had luxuries that girls did not, he remembered her saying. They were allowed to run wild and play rough and express themselves loudly. Little boys didn’t have to know how to sit still while little girls grew up quick and proper.

Steve always thought that it was unfair because he wasn’t allowed to do any of those things. He had never been allowed to be as loud and rough as he wanted, couldn’t be soft and emotional either. He never had his father’s protection.

He was _nothing_.

He had always been nothing more than a commodity.

He was no different than new wallpaper and pretty rings, just something to have and look pretty because everybody had things that looked pretty.

His parents had a kid because everybody was having kids, because they were _expected_ to. His friends were only his friends because he had a pool, and money, and no adult supervision. Girls only dated him to boost their reputation, or impress their friends, or to get into his pants.

No one actually _wanted_ him.

Almost everybody in the universe could agree that no one should ever hit a child, so his father felt _bad_ about doing it. He felt terrible and then he felt frustrated and that was a stronger emotion.

His soft touch on Steve’s jaw had curled into a rough grip at his throat, pressing in before it _melted_ like a cold blue heat. Steve felt like the touch was branded on his skin forever.

His father’s soft disappointment in honey dew eyes, his jaded resolve, and his empty regret pulled farther behind a closed off curtain. He fell to old routines and old habits, and he got annoyed with Steve because that was what usually happened.

He got angry with Steve. He got unsatisfied with the kid in front of him. He sighed tiredly and put his hands on his hips with a grand show of _nothing_.

His father was a manipulator.

He could close book sales and deals, and sweet talk anybody into signing with his company. He twisted every interaction that he had into his favor and this was no different.

There was no point in arguing because Steve knew that his father always thought that his twisted perspective was the right one. There was no point in saying anything when his father told him, “You made me do this, Steven.”

It all meant _nothing_.

It never really did.

Both of Steve’s grandfathers were named Steven so it only stood to reason that their grandson shared the same first name. It was only natural to scam both sides of the family into thinking that they were favored to the other, that they were more important and had more value. No one ever called it what it was.

Sometimes a rope was just a rope, and sometimes it hanged.

Steve felt like he’d been choking on the end of impossible standards that were constantly changing depending on _context_. He felt suffocated for as long as he could remember, felt strangled on expectations that he had no chance of ever living up to.

He clawed at the rope around his throat daily because he couldn’t be the war time soldier or the renowned surgeon, and he got no other fucking option.

Steve always wondered if that was where the resentment started to settle, if his parents decided that they didn’t want anything to do with a son that wasn’t special, or gifted, or every going to live up to their high hopes. He had been a _king_ in high school, but like war time generals and renowned surgeons, it only ever mattered in context.

“No one makes up do anything, _Dad_.”

Steve slipped further down into the tub once more, letting the water slip up over his chin and tickle his bottom lip. If he closed his eyes that he would be alone again, repeating to himself in a nearly silent whisper, “No one makes up do anything.”

If he closed his eyes than no one else existed and there was no reason to feel so hollow.

If he closed his eyes than he didn’t see Nancy today. He didn’t see Jonathan, or Billy, or Tommy, or Hopper. If he closed his eyes and ignored the stinging on his wrist than stitches were never torn, and cuts were never reopened, and nothing was ever going to scar because nothing existed.

If he kept his eyes closed than he was perfect, and alone, and did not need anything else because, “No one makes up _do_ anything, you make your own fate.”

Nancy had done so.

She had manipulated circumstance, so they were in the parking lot together, on the porch together, so that she saw him in the front hall. His parents manipulated every moment to their favor so that they were always right, always smart, always perfect.

Steve’s eyes snapped open at the knock on the door, “Did you say something, honey?”

“No, Ma.”

“Do you need anything?” She asked, the doorknob turning but the door not opening. “Are you okay?”

“I’m _fine_ ,” He replied dully, pushing himself up again. He drained the tub as the handle was let go of. The universe was too crowded to _breathe_ sometimes, and his mother was stalking beyond the door. Fate happened only when it was made.

Steve got out of the tub and dressed numbly into sweats. He picked up his comb to brush his hair but dropped it because what was the _point_. His reflection in the mirror was _ugly_.

No, it was worse.

He was nearly unrecognizable, gaunt and too skinny, and his face oozed a haggard exhaustion. His eyes were sunken and his cheeks hollow, the cut on his forehead a thin red line that probably wouldn’t even scar.

He looked like a corpse but breathing.

His wrists were rubbed raw and red, and the eye drew straight to them. His eyes were not just sunken, they were hollowed, empty and dead in dark irises. He wasn’t pretty anymore so he wasn’t – _anything_ anymore.

Jesus.

Steve locked the bathroom door, slamming the lock into place with a harsh deafening breath and hunched over the counter. His hands held so tight to the marble that his knuckles turned white and he could feel his heart pulsing in his wrist. He forced himself to breath.

He stood there with the door lock and his ugly empty reflection staring back at him, listening to the clicking of his mother’s heels over the pounding of his heart. He thought about smashing the mirror, about the seven years bad luck and about ripping the rest of his stitches open with glass shards.

His mother’s knock was consistent, three sharp raps and then a pause, “Stevie, honey, open the door.”

Three sharp knocks and then a pause, “Steve, remember the policy we have. No locks.”

She jiggled the doorknobs and thumped her hand against the wood, _something_ less composed seeping into her voice, “We’re not play a game, Steven, open the door.”

Steve sighed at his reflection as his mother spoke, “Steve, honey, I’m not comfortable with this. I need you to open this door right now or I’ll get a key.”

He ignored her.

He swallowed hard and opened the medicine cabinet. He felt _full_ for the first time in a long time, felt like he was filled to the brim with just – hopelessness. He looked _terrible_.

His wrists were ruined forever. His reputation was just _gone_ after today. He didn’t even _want_ to be with Nancy anymore so what did he actually want at all? He was just lost.

There was nowhere to _go_ from here.

There was no way to _fix_ this. There was nothing.

He picked up the little orange bottle of little white pills sitting on the middle shelf with numb fingertips. He could feel himself dissociating from this moment, could feel himself getting dangerous again.

He should open the door.

He should take every pill in this bottle, swallow them all. He should end this where it started, Barb died here so he should too.

He wanted it. He needed it.

It was the natural conclusion to his story.

It was the only way to end this movie, book, screenplay.

Steve was the babysitter that was supposed to die. He was the asshole boyfriend, the useless side character that had fulfilled a purpose and now had no use. Even Billy didn’t want anything to do with him.

He’d lived too long already.

Steve had power, but it only in causing his own destruction and no one could take that away from him. If he took one pill than he could take all of them.

The door was locked, and his mother was never going to find the key for it. His mind whispered sinisterly into his ear, _no one could stop you._  

His mind whispered, _do this for yourself._

His mind whispered, _there’s no pain in a white nothingness._

Pills didn’t work when he was just sad about his grandmother and had trouble getting out of bed, how could they possible work for this? And if they did, why did it matter?

Steve was fucking _ruined_ in this town.

It was one thing when The Party thought that he was broken, or Billy thought that he was crazy. Tommy thought it now and Billy told the whole fucking locker room, and all of that would spread.

It would cover the high school by Friday, seep into the middle school and then to everybody’s parents. Steve was just that poor rich kid that cut his wrists for attention and no one was going to think otherwise.

And if they did, would it matter?

Steve was either an attention seeker or fucking crazy.

There was no fucking _win_ for him. There was nothing but pills.

Pills were just – _pills_.

They were a hospital orange canister full of reminders that he was broken from the inside out and there was nothing worth fixing about it. There was nothing that _could_ be fixed, only the symptoms could be treated so that everybody else felt comfortable.

He could take one pill and he would still feel miserable. He could take all of them and unlock the door, could smile to his mother and tell Nancy over her and Jonathan’s frequency that it wasn’t her fault. He could curl up in bed and close his eyes, and never feel anything again.

He uncapped the bottle, he could take all of them.

He sat the lid on the counter next to his toothpaste, he _should_ take all of them.

He looked down into the content of the little orange bottle, looked at the little white pills that were supposed to make him happy, or better, or complacent, and then he took one of the pills out.

He rolled the little white oblong between his fingers, observing it with batted breath and the knowledge that he was in a dangerous state of mind. He could take it, he could take all of them.

He _wanted_ to.

Fate was something that you made, and Steve had been destined to die since the moment he ran back into the Byers’ house. His mind had created a world of spies and paranoia, and the conclusion of it had always been with his death.

Dying was a lot easier than living.

Dying made more sense.

Dying made all of this _end_.

He could rest.

His mother was knocking at the door again, her voice sounding a step above frantic and cracking all wrong, “Steven, I need you to open this door right now, okay? Or – or, just speak to me. Tell me what’s wrong? Tell me what you’re doing?”

 _Dying_ , Steve thought as he pushed the pill through his lips. _Dying was the conclusion._  

Steve rolled the pill around in his mouth, tasting the chalky aftertaste as he swallowed. He looked down into the pill bottle.

He breathed in shakily and forced himself to breath out.

“ _Steve_ ,” His mother’s voice sounded distant behind the door, small and wet. “Honey, just talk to me. Tell me what it is that you need. Just talk to me.”

He’d never heard his mom sound anything less than composed. It was weird.

Steve pressed the cap back onto the bottle and put it back into the cabinet in one harsh breath. He flipped the lock on the door and opened it to his mother standing there. He told her honestly, “I don’t want to be alone.”

He’d never seen his mother cry in earnest.

He’d never seen her look anything other than perfect, but her mascara was smudge at the edges and her eyes shiny and wet. She looked almost alien to him, pale in the face and older than she was. She looked relieved.

She held onto him tight, wrapping her arms around him in the hallway like she was making sure that he was really there which was _weird_. Steve was always here, she was the one that was always leaving.

Her voice cracked when she whispered to him, “You don’t have to be alone, I’m here. Don’t ever do that again, you scared me so much.”

“Please just – stay,” He asked of her, begged her, pleaded. He wrapped his arms around her in a hug that felt so real and relieving to have, that felt free of ulterior motive as what was left of his composure fell.

He didn’t even know where to start. He felt dangerous, felt sad, felt hopeless. He broke himself and damaged his face. He didn’t want to die, didn’t want to kill himself, but it felt like there was no other choice left for him.

“I’m scared, Ma,” He settled on. “I need help.”

She whispered back, “I’m not going anywhere.”

She whispered, “We can make everything better.”

She took him down the hall to his bedroom and sat with him on the bed, just holding him because Steve needed that. He felt so exhausted and raw that he couldn’t even feel grateful that he was finally getting what he _wanted_.

She was _seeing_ him.

She wasn’t asking prying questions or trying to find the bottom of his despair, she wasn’t thinking of her books for once. She was just holding him and fussing with his messy hair and his wrinkled clothes because neither of them really knew how to do this. She didn’t know how to offer comfort without trying to fix something because she didn’t know how to be a mother and he didn’t know how to be a person.

He sniffled, “Thank you for staying with me.”

“There’s nowhere I want to be more,” She told him, tilting his head up with both her hands on his jaw. She gave him a watery smile and blinked back tears in her wet eyes, “If you ever feel like this again, and I truly hope that you never do, I need you to know that you don’t have to hide. I – I’m so sorry that it came this far, Steve.”

She whipped her eyes and blinked upwards, “It never should have gotten this far, and I don’t know why it has, but I know that I was complacent in it. It hurts to see how much you are hurting and how you must have been hurting for so long in silence.”

“We’re going to make changes,” She told him firmly, sniffling. “We’re all going to get help, because something like this shouldn’t happen in a family that communicates. We’re going to get better.”

Steve didn’t know what he was supposed to feel when she stopped talking, feeling himself being overtaken by a protective numbness. He felt too much, and his soul couldn’t take it anymore, so things were shutting down.

He didn’t know what to say to her because all of this had been said before. They were always repeating the same old patterns without end. Something would happen, and his mother would suggest family therapy. Sometimes they’d go and pretend that they’re perfect but most of the time, they didn’t.

Nothing receded like progress and nothing mattered until there were results.

He nodded, “Okay.”

She pressed a kiss to his forehead and stayed with him, rubbing her ringed hands up and down his back in a motion that wasn’t exactly comforting but was _something_. She promised to stay with him until he didn’t need her anymore, but everything fell apart so quickly.

They were still breathing the same air before her words started to lose their meaning. All it took was his father yelling up the stairs that she had a call from someone important, and she was telling him, “I’ll just be down the hall, baby, okay? It’ll be real quick. Okay?”

“…Okay, Ma.”

Steve was just – exhausted with this.

He was exhausted with his parents’ inability to prioritize what was important and Steve thought that his suicidal tendencies rated higher than fucking Dr. Quinn from the University of San Diego. He was tired of coming second to phone calls and business trips, and being blamed for the things that other people have done to him.

He was just tired.

He wasn’t even afraid anymore.

He wasn’t afraid of the spies that never existed, or of Billy Hargrove trying to kill him. He was just – he was just empty.

He was a new empty.

He was void without stars, a universe without anything. He was fragile skin and nothing inside, and that was somehow so much worse than feeling overstuffed and filled up. It was worse than feeling dangerous.

This was a numbness that he couldn’t touch.

His eyes were red-rimmed, staring blank and unblinking at the floor as he counted his mother’s steps down the hall. He could call Hopper, but his mother was using the phone. He could use his walkie-talkie to call Nancy, or he could do a hundred other humiliating things and pretend that everybody wasn’t just pretending to care about him.

He could take all the pills.

 _Shut up_.

He could claw off the lock of his mother’s medicine cabinet and take every damn pill that she had in there. _Shut up._

Jason, the hospital psychiatrist, might have been right about disassociating, but he was wrong in the context. Steve had never been so fucking aware of exactly what he was doing when he sliced his wrists on his car window. He’d never been more aware of _why_.

He had wanted an out.

He felt dirty and wrong, and he wanted to cut out what shouldn’t have been inside of him.

He was a fucking moron about it, but he had done exactly what he thought that he had to do to fix this – to fix himself. It was wrong, _yeah_ , but no one was ever around to teach him anything.

No one listened so he had no other options to consider.

It was not his fucking fault that he felt this bad. It wasn’t his job to fix everybody else’s hurt feelings. It wasn’t even his problem that they had hurt feelings!

He had a lot of hurt feelings and no one was offering to fix them.

Steve could hear his mother’s voice down the hall, so she must have taken the call in her office. She didn’t offer any response that sounded like ‘ _this is a bad time,’_ or ‘ _I’m with my son right now,’_ or _‘it’s rude to call this late anyways.’_

I was just – _‘Hello. Yes, this is Angela. No, no, it’s not too late. I’ve been waiting on your call, blah, blah, blah. I am actively trying to push my son to suicide because I hate him. Blah.’_

Steve breathed in and he breathed out.

He messed up his hair. He pressed his fingernails into his wrist and dragged them over the raised cuts there. He hissed in a breath at the pain and hissed the breath out.

He didn’t want to die. Fuck.

He didn’t know what he wanted but he knew that he wasn’t going to be killed by spies. He knew that he didn’t have to accept a death brought to him by Ronald Reagan and government conspiracy. He knew that he had options now and death was so fucking scary.

Blood loss was scary. Blacking out was scary. Waking up in pain with mutilated wrists in a hospital was scary. It was humiliating. It was horrible.

Being alive _sucked_ , but he – there had to be one place in the whole goddamn universe that didn’t scratch against the back of his throat like sandpaper and that place wasn’t here.

He hated this fucking house.

He hated his parents and the words that they always went back on. He hated Hawkins, but he hated this house even more.

Steve moved from the bed and sat on the floor, crossed-legged and leaning forward until his head pressed into the carpet. He hated it here and he had no car, no friends, nowhere to go.

He breathed in. He breathed out.

He felt like crying.

He supposed that it shouldn’t be all that surprising that his father came into his room even though his father has probably never stepped foot into his room before. It shouldn’t have been surprising because the universe actively hated him half the time and he’d come to accept that so, _of course,_ all of this had to get worse.

His father sighed as he pulled Steve’s desk chair from his desk and sat down in it, “Steven, sit up. You’re not a child.”

_You don’t even know me._

_I could disappear, and you wouldn’t even care._

“Did you come here to slap some more ‘sense’ into me?” He asked, not picking his head up from the floor. “It won’t work.”

His father sighed again.

Steve remembered how he used to beg for weeks to go to work with his dad. He used to carry books around and pretend that he gave a fuck about what the Boxcar Children were doing. He used to say that he wanted to be like his dad to everybody, speaking so loud in hopes that his father heard him.

He went to more Take Your Kid to Work Days with Tommy’s dad than he did with his own.

The only time that he did go to work with his father was because he was sick and in between nannies, and his mother was in New York or somewhere. His father had sat at a big desk while Steve sat on the floor with a bunch of paper to sort through. He had sighed at his intern just like he was sighing now.

He sighed just like that and then yelled at the nervous man so loud that it felt like the whole room shook. Steve never asked to go again.

He mentally prepared himself for nothing because he couldn’t honestly care if his father yelled at him. “Just say it.”

“What do you presume that I have to say, Steven?”

“You know that most people say _assume_ , right? _Presume_ , you sound like an asshole,” Steve told him, rolling his eyes. “Just – go ahead and say that you’re disappointed in me and then you and Ma can disappear to whatever side of the country you want to be on.”

“I see,” His father said plainly, sounding a lot like he didn’t see a goddamn thing. “Steven, look at you. You’re eighteen and you’re throwing a tantrum like this.”

Steve lifted his head at that, but his father didn’t give him the chance to respond, “Indiana State has been calling periodically about you setting up your schedule for your first semester of classes and about orientation. Do you _listen_ to the messages on the answering machine?”

Steve rolled his eyes, “I do.”

“I know that you like to think that I am the enemy, Steven, but I’m just being realistic. You don’t have the grades to graduate right now but you have time to fix that and to go to college,” He stated. “How are you going to feel when all of your friends are off at school and you’re stuck here with a menial job.”

“You didn’t like that Wheeler girl for a tutor, so be it, find one that you do like and pick up the pieces, Steven. This act has grown tiresome and you have responsibilities.”

Steve sucked in a breath, “ _An act_?”

Because Steve couldn’t actually be suicidal. Because everything he did was an act against his father. _Fuck you._

Steve didn’t have to stay here.

This house was going to fucking kill him. 

One minute, he was leaving his bedroom and the next Joyce was mortified at her front door, “Steve, what are you doing here? Look at you, frozen though. Come in, come in.”

Steve blinked, and he could have laughed but he didn’t know if he would cry. He hadn’t meant to actually _leave_ , he hadn’t planned to do anything other than walk to the end of their property, but he didn’t stop where their land met the woods.

He hadn’t meant to leave even though the walls were clawing at him and his father was _horrible,_ and he was dangerous all over again. He cleared his throat, “I’m fine.”

“Did you walk here without a coat?” She asked, pulling him inside and rubbing his forearm. “Did something happen?”

Steve lived on the other side of the woods, being here was so fucking stupid. It was ridiculous. He wouldn’t have, “I…”

“Come on,” She told him softly, reaching out and wrapping her arm around him without actually touching him. Will was in the living room, the TV on something bright and colorful but his eyes were on Steve as Joyce hummed softly, “It’s okay.”

“I just needed to get out.”

“I know,” She nodded, and he thought that she heard the ‘ _I had nowhere to go’_ in his voice. “Let me make you some hot chocolate.”

“I’m fine.”

“I know.”

Steve didn’t like to be coddled. He absolutely despised being treated like he was broken, or damaged, or stupid even if he was every one of those things, but he liked Mrs. Byers. He liked the softness of her eyes and the firmness of her hand at his elbow, the way she felt like home and love, and soft worn flannel. He did as she said.

He kicked off his muddy slippers at the door and exchanged his damp shirt for a large ancient sweatshirt that said Hawkins High School Bowling Squad. She said nothing of the lack of bandages on his arms or of the blood he drew from torn stitches, digging at them with his fingernails.

She just draped a towel over his head and rubbed the moisture from his hair, and then sat him down in front of the TV with Will and told him to rest.

He didn’t.

He closed his eyes when Will followed her out of the room and held his breath when she returned alone with hot chocolate and an extra blanket. He didn’t open his eyes until the couch dipped beside him and Will was there with his big world-weary eyes and some notebook paper, “Do you want to draw?”

He shook his head and Will nodded understandingly, “I didn’t draw a lot after – all that, not for a long time.”

Steve didn’t know what to say but he didn’t think Will was expecting him to say anything because he kept talking, “Jonathan said that you’re in his art class and you’re really good. I didn’t even know you could draw.”

“Paint,” Steve whispered, pulling the blanket around himself.

“Paint,” Will repeated, nodding like he was adding that to a database of information about him. “I have watercolors in my room. They’re not all that great but I can get them.”

“No thanks.”

“That’s okay,” Will said. “You should drink your hot chocolate before it gets cold.”

Will didn’t ask anything of Steve, wasn’t asking that he get better or tell him what’s wrong, or that he paint a picture. He just moved the remote closer to him and gave his strong opinions on He-Man even though Steve never asked.

Steve couldn’t hear the words that were being said in the kitchen, but he knew what a whispered conversation meant. He didn’t expect Joyce to let him stay here, didn’t even know _why_ he came here in the first place when all he wanted was some fresh air.

He doesn’t really know why he told Will, “I’m really messed up.”

“Kids are allowed to be messed up,” Will told him in his soft voice. “Only grown-ups have to pretend that they’re fine, and you’re just a big tired kid.”

Steve could crack a smile at that, “Yeah, I guess so.”

His smile didn’t last long when he heard the front door open and tensed up. Will looked over Steve’s shoulder to the entrance, frowning, “Hi?”

“Steve?” Dustin’s voice sounded and then he was crouching down by the couch so that they were face to face. Steve’s eyes didn’t leave Dustin’s dirty shoes, frowning at the mud that he’d tracked along the floor. “Mrs. Byers’ isn’t going to care if I have my shoes on in the house, she’s not like that.”

“Mrs. Byers is great.”

“Yeah, Steve,” He said like Steve did something right, like he was skittish and prone to running away which… wasn’t wrong. He settled on the floor, cross-legged, “I was at home and your mom called mine looking for you, she sounded really freaked out, and I thought – _of course_ you’d go to Mrs. Byers. She’s the nicest person in the world so I biked here. What happened, Steve?”

Steve’s eyes shifted from Dustin’s to the cartoon on the TV, and then back to Dustin. He followed his worried gaze down to his bloody wrists and shifted uncomfortably, “I cut it.”

“You cut it?” Dustin repeated dumbly, sharing a look with Will that Steve didn’t understand. “Yourself?”

“The glass.”

“In your car?” He asked and then shook his head. “That was _before_ , how did this happen?

_Billy Hargrove in the locker room. My fingernails in my bedroom. Cut on a tree branch walking here._

“I don’t know.”

“It’s okay not to know,” Will chimed in. “It’s not important _how_ anyways, Dustin.”

“It’s kind of important, _Will_ , what if he cut it on a rusty nail? He’d need to get shots, or he could have been bitten by a werewolf, or-“

“It was-“ Steve stopped, pushing himself up suddenly and stumbling forward. He hit his knee on the coffee table, putting distance between them.

All of this felt different, felt too _normal_ and clear, and his emotions felt more grounded than they ever did. This wasn’t right, “You’re a spy, like the rest of them.”

The bandages were long abandoned, and Steve’s stitches were a mess, torn in places and clotted with dried blood. Dustin’s wrists hurt with the way Steve’s shook with exertion. He tried to help, “Steve, you shouldn’t-“

“You’re the girl, you have the girl,” Steve accused, batting Dustin’s hand away from him irritatingly, stumbling backwards. He nearly fell over the arm chair. “Billy was a red herring to – to lull me into thinking that I was wrong, but I wasn’t. I can’t – I couldn’t be that wrong.”

“What girl, Steve?”

“El’s sister,” Steve muttered. “Does things with her mind, messes with your mind and you’re – it’s not Dustin, he’s not real. You – I _don’t_ know anything, man. I was just there.”

“Jesus, Steve, you just admitted to knowing El and Kali,” Dustin swore under his breath. “Keep it down, Mrs. Byers is on the phone and – and not with some _spy_. We’re not spies, Steve, or – or hallucinations caused by Kali.”

“I don’t believe you,” He shook his head almost violently. He couldn’t be that wrong about everything, he couldn’t have almost died for no fucking reason.

Suddenly his mother was acting like she cared about him? Bullshit.

They were giving him exactly what he wanted to get what they wanted, and then they’d kill him.

“Tell me something that only the real Dustin knows.”

Dustin blinked and then didn’t hesitate, “Farrah Fawcett spray.”

Steve stopped and blinked, and Dustin felt a bit too overwhelmed as he rushed through, “Faberge Organics. Use the shampoo and then conditioner, and when the hair is damp, not wet, do four puffs of Farrah Fawcett spray. You told me that on the railroad tracks.”

Steve just – lost all his fight.

He sunk to the floor and buried his face in his hands. Dustin didn’t think that he was crying but his voice sounded strained when he said, ‘I don’t know what’s real anymore.”

“That’s okay.”

“It’s not,” Steve sniffed, and Dustin shared a horrified look with Will because he didn’t know how to handle this. “It’s not okay. It’s not, it’s-“

“Steve-“

“It’s not okay!” Steve snapped, too loud. “Billy should have – _God_ , I should have – I wish-“

“No,” Dustin said firmly. “You’re in The Party, you protected us and if – do you think that would have happened if Billy Hargrove would have hit you harder?”

“It was Billy.” All of them startled at the sound in the doorway, Mrs. Harrington looked like her son in all ways but the sharpness of her eyes and the horrible expression covering her face. She hadn’t even knocked, “That’s who it was.”

“Ma.”

“That is the name of the boy that beat you up, that – that gave you a concussion and – that’s why you didn’t want to go to the police,” She said, if not accused. “It was the boy from the office, the charming one.”

“Angela,” Joyce said in a grown-up voice, one of those that said more in a single word than paragraphs in English class. Steve was growing up, so he understood all that she wasn’t say. _Don’t push, he’ll run off. Don’t push, he’ll break more._

“Steve,” His mother said softly after Joyce gestured the boys out of the room. She sat on the floor across from him, laying her hands between them with the palms up.

He could take her hand if he wanted, but he didn’t.

“Stevie, _Steve_ , baby, do you want to stay the night with the Byers?” She asked. He stared at the hands between them, painted fingernails and pretty rings. Her hands were dainty like Nancy’s, he frowned as she spoke again, “Joyce has said that it’s fine, I just – I need to know what you want to do. Your decision will not upset me.”

That was lie, but he nodded anyways.

“Okay.”

She sighed but nodded, “Okay.”

“We’ll talk in the morning,” She added, reaching out like she was going to hug him but dropped her hands. “If you need anything, call and someone will pick up. Please be – careful, Steve.”

He nodded.

Steve helped with baking cookies for the AV club bake sale because Dustin had talked his way into staying the night too, and Jonathan was back in his room. They made cookies too big and with too many chocolate chips, and no one said anything about anything until Steve did, “I think my mom will forgive Billy.”

Will bit into a cookie, “Will you?”

Steve shrugged, “For beating my face in, I’m over it.”

“Not for that,” He said. “The other thing.”

Steve’s wrists ached when he took the cookie sheet from the oven and sat it on the stove. They were newly bandaged and hidden away, and sometimes Steve appreciated the bluntness of The Party, “I wasn’t trying to kill myself.”

“Your intention doesn’t really matter though,” Dustin said. “The actions that you did lead to you almost dying, and – I think, you weren’t in a good mind space which isn’t good.”

“I know.”

“So – I mean, you might not want to talk to us about what’s going on but we’re friends,” He said. “And it’s scary what you’re going to. Will knows that more than anybody so if you – if you don’t know if something is real than come to someone.”

“You can trust us,” Will added.

Dustin grinned, “Farrah Fawcett spray, man.”

“Farrah Fawcett spray.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooo, I was planning for this chapter to be the last but it got really long and tedious so one more chapter after this. Thanks for reading!


	28. Chapter 28

The art show was hosted at the community art center.

Steve put together a collection of five paintings for the show because Annalise had insisted on it, and had _hounded_ him about it, and had cornered him at his locker with the sign-up sheet and a, _‘pretty, pretty please with sugar and gumdrops on top.’_

She had huffed and stomped her foot, and made a grand show for no one about him signing up for the show because, _‘people need to see these paintings, Steve! They’re too emotional and raw to not be seen by the public eye. It would be a travesty of the highest order!’_

She smiled at him with lipstick on her teeth and laid it on really thick in her fake French accent even though Steve didn’t even take her class anymore. She grabbed his shoulders and shook sense into him, crooning softly, _‘some paintings are worth a thousand words and some are worth so much more, your artwork transcends written language, darling. Trust me on that, they are so cataclysmically tragic and **bleed**_ _through in a way that will resonate within people. The world needs to have art like this in it.’_

He didn’t really believe her, but he signed the papers so that she would leave him alone. He didn’t believe her at all, he didn’t even _like_ his own art.

It felt like a mistake when he was filling out the forms, when signed his name at the bottom. It had felt like a bigger mistake when he picked out which pieces he would showcase. It felt like a mistake that was getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger with every passing day until the art show was _on_ him.

It felt heavy.

The art center was all cream-colored walls and shiny marbled floors, trying to be fancier than it had any right to be when it was cluttered up with high school art. Paintings and pictures hung on the walls, stands strategically placed statues in glass boxes, and his parents name and smiling faces were on the donation wall.

It was a nice and clean hell, and it was suffocating him with perfume. Steve hated this.

It was all embarrassingly _passionate_ teenagers cringingly unaware of how awkward and dumb they were while pouring out pointless exposition and bullshit on ‘art critics’ that were really just Annalise’s friends dressed like fancy hobos and French stereotypes. It was painfully awkward conversations between students and their parents about art that didn’t really have meaning, that they were all pretending _did._

It was horrible.

It was rows upon rows upon rows of _stuff_. The walls were lined with pretty paintings and abstract paintings, and boring landscapes of Hawkins’ long faded winter. It was live drawings and fruit drawings, and things that deserved hung on living room walls, and things that didn’t.

It was pots and vases, and little smudgy sculptures trapped in clear boxes. It was rows of black and white photographs of woods, and people, and Nancy Wheeler’s pensive frown from artful angles.

Steve looked away.

In the middle of the mazelike room, in the middle of everything was a wall that was seen as soon as the doors were opened. On that wall, there was Steve’s dark sliced up mess.

The first thing that anybody saw when they walked through the door was thick layering of Upside Down black and slit wrists red, strokes of purples and blues like bruises, like death. It looked like the Upside Down, like the tunnels that narrowed in his vision and wrapped around his dreams, that took over his life and ate at him until all that was left was _ugly_.

It looked like the Upside Down, but it also looked like _scars_.

People knew about the scars.

Steve could _feel_ it like claws in his back that everybody that looked at his artwork saw the jagged and crisscrossed manic strokes across old faces and clenched fists, and narrow thin shoulders, and they saw scars. Steve felt sick seeing what he created.

Three of his paints were bought which was crazy.

He didn’t understand it.

His mother didn’t understand it either.

She was only at the art center because she had accepted the invitation that Steve extended to her, which only really happened because he had a new therapist and she suggested it. Dr. Lindsey suggested that he invite his parents to the show as an olive branch, a place to start connecting and growing together.

She _somehow_ thought that it would be good for his _closure_ and his relationship with his parents, but it was awkward. They were both too hyperaware that this only reason that either of them were standing here was because of Dr. Lindsey.

His mother had to fly in from lecturing in Texas for this.

It was so fucking stupid.

Steve never really talked to Dr. Lindsey about his real issues, about the Upside Down and his paralyzing fear that the gate would open again. He never talked about his yo-yoing paranoia about spies coming to get him. She only came to this particular bright idea because they talked a lot about his parents.

They talked about how his parents didn’t really know how to be parents and how he didn’t know how to be their son, as if he had – _no_.

_Bad thinking. Stop._

His mind was trailing off into negative spaces and then it would spiral down into something very dark and breathing, and he was trying to do that less. He was working on changing that aspect of himself because it was dangerous. _The world was not ending today._

His mother frowned at his paintings.

He knew that she could see the aimlessness in the brush strokes, that she could see building horror, and hurt, and devastation beneath all the paint with the critical eye of a psychiatrist. She liked art, but Steve could tell that she didn’t like this.

He didn’t even blame her.

Not really.

She pursed her red lips together, ringed fingers resting on her jaw before she pulled her eyes away from the broad strokes. She looked at her son like she was seeing him, saying, “Your father couldn’t make it, he sends his best.”

Steve was not surprised, honestly.

He made a mental note to tell Dr. Lindsey that inviting his parents was a huge fucking mistake like he thought it would be, and sighed, “Okay.”

His mother hummed, waving a hand towards the paintings – three with signs beneath them saying that they were bought and by who. Her eyes narrowed at the placard that stated his name and the title of the collection – _Steve Harrington, A Mess. 1985._

She blinked at it like she did not believe that it was his artwork, “What was it that you were feeling when you painted these pieces, Steven?”

 _A lot,_ he sighed.

He shrugged his shoulders, _nothing at all._

“I don’t know, Ma.”

Three people bought his art and his mother hated it.

Steve hated it too.

He folded in on himself a little, his shoulders curling in protectively and his back hunching forward. He didn’t want to be here anymore. He didn’t want to be seen like this, stared at. Gawked at.

Annalise had been right.

What he created was too raw, it was tearing open his chest and pulled from his lungs, and he didn’t _want_ to be seen anymore. It felt like his mother was walking her stilettos across his exposed nerve endings, was disappointed by the pain.

“Stevie, don’t slouch.”

“Let me get you a drink, Ma,” Steve offered in a breath.

She looked at him but didn’t say anything other than, “Nothing with sugar, dear. I’m on a diet.”

Steve slipped away like a ghost as quickly and quietly as he could, breathing in and breathing out. He reminded himself that there was no rope around his neck, no closed gate in front of him.

No one could keep him in a situation that he didn’t want to be in anymore, he reminded himself even as he bypassed the exit and walked to the concessions table. He could leave if he wanted to.

He tried to remember everything that Dr. Lindsey had reminded him about tonight because he was _trying_ to be better. He was trying really hard.

The art show was good for him because he couldn’t hide away from a ruined reputation forever. He couldn’t keep his head down for the rest of his life and limit his interactions to superficial and miniscule levels because nothing ever blossomed when it wasn’t facing the sun.

His relationship with his mother was getting better and something that they were both trying to improve at the same time. The problem was that it was a _process_ and things were _just_ getting better. It wasn’t good.

There are a lot of steps that have been taken and a lot more that still needed to be taken, but he couldn’t step back over the lines that he had crossed when he attempted suicide. He couldn’t take it back.

It was a _part_ of him now. It was something added to this list of his definitions – Steve Harrington: keg king, handsome son, babysitter, attempted suicide survivor.

It was weathered in stone.

It would never go away.

They couldn’t go back from that and every interaction that he had with his mother was always drowned in this dawning realization that he almost died. His mother was a psychiatrist and she made things worse, and they both _knew_ that. They were trying to come to terms with that, trying to be better, but it was act.

Sometimes it had to be an act before it could be real.

It was all movies scripts and rewrites, and Steve was working on making things flow better. _This_ was supposed to be a step in the right direction. It was supposed to be an olive branch.

“Haven’t seen you around, pretty boy.”

Steve sucked in a breath through his teeth, Billy’s voice was a sudden and solid weight against the back of his neck. It pitched him forward like a ghost in a horror movie breathing down his skin, like the biting cold of harsh metal.

Billy was _there_ , and present, and as real as the soft touch of worn cotton and the half-buttoned dirty shirt under his jean jacket. He was not dressed for the occasion, slipping around Steve to lean against the table.

Billy was there with his burning blue eyes and a paper cup of fruit punch in his hand, smirking something relaxed. He was in front of Steve, very real and very solid, and _there_ with a dumb nametag pinned to his jacket’s collar. Steve blinked.

He blinked again, and Billy was _still_ there, watching him. He didn’t know why he asked, “Are you – _working_ here?”

“Wow, you’re still as smart as ever, Harrington,” Billy said with a sarcastic smoothness in his rough voice. There was bite there but it was like a nibble, like they were just friends joking around. “ _No_ , I’m not working this shitshow. I’ve got standards.”

Steve didn’t think that was true at all, but, “….okay?”

“ _Okay,”_ Billy repeated, rolling his eyes like Steve was annoyingly stupid. There was a tonal shift in his voice, a forced _something_ that wedged between biting sarcasm and an almost friendliness, “I got a job a month or so back at that auto shop on Main, gonna make enough cash and then blow town back to Cali after graduation.”

Steve shifted on his feet, feeling so uncomfortable by this.

Jonathan was on the other side of the room with his brother and his mother, and his lame black and white pictures of trees and Castle Byers, and Nancy. Steve was so fucking _aware_ that their eyes were shifting towards him and watching, and waiting for Billy to do something or for him to do something.

Steve’s eyes shifted away from their presence, away from the intensity in Billy’s blue gaze to over his shoulder. He nearly choked on his breath because, _of course._

Of course, Nancy would be there.

It was really fucking stupid to not have considered that fact considering that she was _dating_ Jonathan and she was on every fucking committee in town trying to keep herself busy. She met his eyes with an almost startled gaze that shifted too quickly and _sharp_ into that cheese grating intensity.

Steve shifted his look back to Billy wearily.

He sighed.

He didn’t talk to Jonathan or Nancy.

He didn’t _ever_ talk to Jonathan and Nancy anymore which was _bad_ according to Dr. Lindsey. She said that it shouldn’t always be that way because moving on meant confront what got you stuck in the first place.

She said that sometimes they built up those kinds of conversations, though Steve was pretty sure that he was never going to build anything high enough to willingly talk to either of them again.

He knew now that Nancy wasn’t the start of his problems and that she wasn’t end of them either. He understood that they weren’t compatible for a healthy relationship and that it wasn’t their breakup that broke him, it was just easy to latch onto a piece in an otherwise complex puzzle.

He had underlying issues, he saw that now.

He didn’t blame her anymore, but he still felt hurt by her.

They weren’t good for each other and got that, but he loved her more than he had ever loved anybody. He doesn’t feel comfortable dealing with that. He didn’t _want_ to confront how badly it hurt when everything fell apart, or how those feelings were still open and raw for him.

He didn’t want to deal with Nancy’s martyrdom, honestly.

He didn’t want to have to sacrifice the shaky progress that he’d made in accepting his own failures and insecurities because Nancy always needed to feel like the victim and the enemy, and have all the guilt dragged to the surface and piled onto her. He _couldn’t_ do that.

He _loved_ her.

A part of him still loved her and would always love her. It was _hard_ to move on from _bullshit, bullshit, bullshit_ and it was easy to fall back into that. It was so fucking easy, and he couldn’t let himself do it.

He had tried dating as a way to push himself farther from Nancy even though he wasn’t really supposed to.

Dr. Lindsey told that progress was the quickest to recede and the hardest to pick back up. She told Steve that he attached himself to people that he knew would leave him. He built foundations where he knew that they would fall apart because it was easier to manage expectations than it was to be blindsided.

Steve built his self-worth on being pretty, and popular, and rich. He built his future on Nancy’s shoulders because she was smart, and he loved her, and he felt devastated when she had shrugged it off.

He fell in love with every girl that gave him attention and felt lost when that attention waned. He tethered too much onto the expectation that he’d find happiness in fading relationships.

She said that he really shouldn’t be dating because a lot of Steve’s problems stemmed from his self-esteem and his self-worth, and a whole list of other _self-_ words, _whatever._

Steve hadn’t listened because he met a girl named Dani at the tutoring center three days after getting his stitches taken out.

She was a tutor for college level philosophy courses and had sat down at his table while he was waiting for his English tutor to show up. She had started talking a mile a minute about traffic, and Kant, and the deontological moral theory of right and wrong. Steve kind of fell in love with her on the spot.

She talked so wildly and passionately about Kohlberg’s states of moral development and Kantian theory, and it all kind of just wrapped up into knots in Steve’s head. Her face lit up with fervent excitement as her words tangled together until she stopped to breathe and realized that she was at the wrong table.

He had said, “Hi. I’m Steve.”

And she had said, “Dani.”

And he asked her on a date, saying that he was interested in knowing more about post-conventionalism. She had said yes.

He took her to dinner and a movie, and they made out in his car outside of her apartment. He asked her on a second date and he ate vegan food for the first time and drank so much that he threw up. He asked her out on a third and thought that he fell in love with her, made love to her and woke up alone.

He felt happy for a bit.

He ruined for himself, hunched over her kitchen sink in her little apartment while he was skipping therapy. They were tye-dying t-shirts and talking about out scars, and Steve was close to telling her about his own.

He had been pushing his rubber gloves down his arms when she had asked him in her dreamy philosophical voice, “If you could only have one thing in your life for the rest of it, what would it be?”

He had thought about it and told her genuinely, and softly, “Love.”

It felt like the wrong answer and in reflection, it was too fucking revealing for what was essentially a _hang out._ Her smile had fell to something too somber and sober and Steve’s eyes had flickered from her hazel ones down the downward slope of her lips.

He had licked his lips, “What would you pick?”

“Yeah, well, I guess that answer is fine, whatever,” She had said dismissively in words that still repeated in his head. “I wouldn’t pick _love_.”

“Why not?”

“What does that even _mean_?” She had shrugged. “It’s too – _fake_ , passé. It’s like saying that you want world peace. It’s just a _word_ , there’s no meaning it and anyways, it’s just a good idea to have a backup plan when ‘love’ isn’t what you think it is. It’s overrated anyways.”

Steve could still feel the cold seeping into his fingertips through those rubber gloves. He could still feel the way that his heart had dropped, and stopped, and shattered. He could feel the way his face had burnt, and his wrist had hurt, and how fucking stupid he felt, “I guess – that means that you don’t have love.”

“Maybe I just love everybody.”

“That’s – that’s just the same as loving nobody.”

She shrugged, “Yeah, I guess. Whatever.”

They didn’t break up because technically they were never really together, because only high school boys ask girls to go steady according to Dani. They didn’t break up, but Dani was kissing some other guy in the breakroom at the tutoring center, and Steve started seeing Dr. Lindsey three times a week, so…

“Earth to fucking Harrington.”

Steve breathed in harshly and spat the breath out wet.

Billy’s expression wasn’t quite weary, but Steve couldn’t really read it.

Steve said, “Okay.”

Billy said, “Okay.”

“What are you doing here?” Steve finally asked.

Billy had an answer ready, already saying it before Steve finished his question, “Maxine has some shit to do with this thing. Extra credit or something.”

That wasn’t true.

Steve would have seen Max if she was here because she would have been with Will or would have said hello. What kind of extra credit would Max be getting for coming to some shitty art show at a center that was annoyingly out of the way? It was a lie.

Dr. Lindsey had been right about where Steve built his foundations.

He played Jenga with his hopes and needs, and it always shook to pieces. He built on top of people with shoulders that shook, that wouldn’t stay, that couldn’t help him. He built on top of Nancy, and Tommy, and his own building paranoia.

He built his mental stability on top of Billy’s bullying because it was so _easy_ to do. Billy was there when Steve was at his lowest of lows. He was mean, but he wasn’t _always_ mean.

He had saved Steve on that ice because he had no intention of walking backwards. He would have continued until the ice gave in and the water took him. He knew that he would have.

Steve really did think that broken people attracted broken people, and Billy was broken.

“So, I haven’t seen you around,” Billy repeated in a leading way that Steve knew that he was supposed to respond to. Billy wanted him to respond, actually looking _interested_ in what Steve’s response would be.

It was like Billy actually wanted to hear about why he hadn’t seen Steve around school much. He looked like he wanted to hear about how Steve had an abbreviated school schedule now, so he wasn’t there in the morning or at lunch. He looked so interested in hearing about how Steve always skipped out early, so he could leave before the last bell.

He wanted to hear that Steve wasn’t seeing much of anybody anymore.

Billy raised an eyebrow at Steve like he was waiting because he actually gave a fuck about Steve’s army of tutors, or his therapy sessions, or the dumb therapeutic pottery class he was taking where at the end of it, they got to throw their ‘bad energy’ vases at a wall. He looked like he genuinely wanted to hear about how much Steve was looking forward to throwing his pottery at the wall.

It felt a trap.

It felt like something that he would fall into just to give Billy an excuse to make fun of him because Billy was a bad person.

Billy tried to kill him. Billy broke into his house and threatened him. Billy tried to drown him in gym class and ripped his stitches in front of everybody.

Dr. Lindsey told him that he should stay away from Billy because he was a _negative influence._ Billy was a _trigger_ , so Steve got his mother some punch and he picked up a cookie.

He took a step back from Billy, shrugging his shoulders before saying dully, “Yeah.”

Billy’s brows furrowed together in the drawing silence between them, ‘So, where have you been then? You obviously haven’t dropped out.”

“I schedule my classes at Indiana State next week,” Steve said for something to say, feeling line slashed across his wrist with burning clarity. He felt like scratching them open again but shut down that thought. “I have to go.”

“Heard on the radio that the ice at the quarry is finally breaking up, practically completely melted now,” Billy continued talking, his hand on Steve’s arm but not gripping it. “ _That’s_ how little goes on in this town, they’re reporting that on the radio.”

Steve swore that he could feel the rough callouses of his fingertips through his jacket, but Billy wasn’t even _holding_ onto his arm. It was just a barrier, a touch that was stopping Steve from leaving.

Billy just kept talking because Steve wasn’t, “Reporting on the fucking ice melting in _April_ , like that’s weird. Next, they’ll be reporting on how much the grass is growing. Anyways, been waiting to hear about how they found you face down in the deep part.”

He said it like a joke, but Steve was in no position emotionally to be able to joke about what happened on the ice that night, or in his car, or in the parking lot. It didn’t _feel_ like a joke, not even like a bad one. It was a jab.

“I am doing a lot better now, thanks.”

“Are you?” _Is he?_

_Yes. No._

_Shut up._

“Yes,” Steve nodded sharply. He took a step out of Billy’s touch, shivering at the loss of contact. “I – I have to go now. Bye.”

“Look, Harrington,” Billy said, dropping the polite nicety from his voice to something very serious and severe. “I’ve been trying to talk to you for weeks now, but no one has seen head or tail from you since – _that_ day. Maxine said that she doesn’t see much of you either.”

Max said that because she doesn’t.

None of them do, except for Dustin.

Steve didn’t like playing D&D and he had no intention of ever sitting down to play it regardless of how many times they have invited him. He was never stepping foot into the Wheeler’s house again, or the Byers’, or Hopper’s cabin. He only talked to Dustin because the kid was annoyingly persistent about it and had insisted that he needed to teach Steve how to play chess, and insisted that friends helped friends pack up their rooms for college.

“Bigfoot has had more sightings than you have around here,” Billy scoffed. His hand was back on Steve’s arm, still not gripping it but touching him as he moved back into his space. “Things got out of hand in that locker room, that’s what I wanted to say. It shouldn’t have gotten that far but you brought up my mother and you shouldn’t have pushed me like that.”

Because it was Steve’s fault.

It was _always_ Steve’s fault.

It had been his fault that Barb drowned, and Nancy was sad. It was his fault that Nancy left him and cheated on him, and that she felt _guilty_. It was his fault that Billy beat him up, that he let him push him so far over the edge that he didn’t even _know_. It was his fault that Billy dug his fingernails into his stitches and tore them open.

It was his fault that – _no._

_Stop it. Shut up._

He was _trying_ to be better.

He was getting there, but it took a lot of work.

Steve shook his head and he cleared his throat. He looked Billy deep in the intensity of his lightning eyes, and he told him, “No one makes us do anything.”

No one made any of them _do_ anything.

No one made Steve run back into the Byers’ house that night, no one made him pick up that bat and never put it back down. No one made him stand up to Billy, or defend the kids, or climb into that hole. He took all those steps himself.

People pushed, and pushed, and pushed, but so did he. He pushed away logic, and reason, and all the help that offered to him. He took steps in the wrong direction because of his own reasoning but they were _his_ steps. Every step was a new direction, a chance to make better choices and sometimes he did, but other times he didn’t. He…

Steve cut his own wrists.

He did it for a reason that he thought was right and that had turned out to be wrong. He did it because he felt he had no other option, but he did it himself.

There were a lot of factors that lead up to it, a lot of pressure and forces, and paranoia that pushed him in a direction of no return, but Steve took all those steps himself. He fought with Billy. He walked out onto the ice. He cut his own wrists.

He could get better.

They were all things that _he_ did, all things that he was capable of.

Billy made all his own choices.

There were different circumstances and different pressures, and a lifetime of different paths that led to the same points – the Byers’ house, the parking lot, the ice, the locker room. Those were Billy’s choices just as much as they were Steve’s.

Someone messed Billy up.

Somebody put bruises on his neck and took a chunk of skin out from under his jaw, and Steve knew now that it wasn’t just from kids fighting. He knew that it was a lot worse, but he also knew that he didn’t know how to fix that.

Billy held so many secrets that Steve would never willingly tell anybody, that he would never repeat to his parents, or his therapist, or to spies if they tried to torture him. He thought that they were all just jokes, or delusions, or that Steve was just crazy, but he had those secrets and there was nothing he could do to take them back.

He accepted that.

He accepted that fact that if Billy decided to start talking about Demogorgons, if was loud about the Upside Down than spies would come for him. The government would come straight to Steve, but right now he was safe because Billy thought that he was crazy. He accepted that.

The problem with insight was that it went two ways and Steve wasn’t dumb, he was just slow. He opened the worst of himself up to Billy and in doing so, he saw more than he ever wanted to see of his high school bully.

It took too long to notice because Steve wasn’t really looking. It was dumb for him to think that Hopper might have been the one to leave those bruises on Billy’s neck and dumb to just accept Billy’s response about a fight because everybody in school was afraid of him.

Max used to get really quiet when he drove her home from the arcade. He always thought that it was because Billy was there, but he thought that he got that wrong too. He never met Billy’s dad, but he has seen him and…

No one saw what they weren’t looking for.

Decent people knew that it was bad to hit a child but not everybody was decent.

He and Billy were two different sides on the same coin. He was destined to be destroyed at the hands of his bully, drawn in to him and pulled towards him just to violently collide.

He thought that whereas he wanted Billy to destroy him, Billy wanted him to save him, but Steve couldn’t do that. Steve could barely save himself and it was so _hard_ to even manage it.

He took the hand that was on his arm and held it gently by the fingers.

He followed up from beaded bracelets and cheap denim to eyes that were as cold and blue as lightning. He met his gaze for a moment before dropping it, telling their joined fingers, “I’m sorry.”

_Sorry, I don’t know how to help you._

_Sorry, I can’t._

“You should talk to somebody that can help you.”

He dropped the hand and stepped away, stopping at the soft, “Harrington.”

“It can’t be me.”

 

His dad drove him to his admissions interview.

His father took a whole _Tuesday_ off just to drive three hours with Steve to a pointless interview that didn’t require him to have a fucking babysitter. His father had insisted that he needed to be there for Steve to schedule his classes and take a tour of the campus. He _needed_ that.

It was just a formality, his father told him.

He needed to be there to take stock of the whole situation. He needed to make sure that the right questions were being asked and that he was paying for a proper education.

Steve rolled his eyes.

He picked at the band-aid adhesive on his arm from what he was dubbing, a _‘bad night.’_ He pressed his fingertips into the fresh scabs that had formed where he had dug his nails into the skin and didn’t stop until old scars were beaded with blood. He resisted the urge to scratch off the scabs.

He poked at the red puff flesh around the band-aid, at the old scars and the new ones that were going to form, while his father dictated the interview. He answered every question regardless of who it was asked to and asked a whole lot more, practically telling the woman at the registrar that Steve’s classes needed to be scheduled around his therapy sessions.

Steve wanted to _scream_.

He flexed his wrists and swore that he could almost feel scars shifting deep beneath his skin. He felt like throwing up, or falling asleep, or leaving. He felt like screaming and scratching open his arms with the blunt end of the pen he was holding.

His father must have sense that because the pen was being taken away from him a moment later. He was asked with an already tired sigh, “Do you know what you want to major in, Steven?”

He shrugged.

His father sighed again like Steve hadn’t spent the last year being a little too busy trying not to kill himself, like Steve even _thought_ that he was going to survive long enough to make it to college. He tapped down on the paper in front of the poor mousy lady at the desk and told her, “Put him down as undecided for now.”

Later, after an _hour_ of his father harassing the women at the Indiana State registrar office into putting Steve in some economic class that was already filled, and an hour of them being showed around campus, and _another_ fucking hour of his father sweet talking his way into meeting the Dean. After that boring dumb conversation that ended in his dad writing a check as a donation, they finally left.

Steve felt drained, and hungry, and too exhausted when he dropped into the booth at a road side McDonalds. He was not in the mood for his father to start digging into him, to start needling at him and judging him, and insisting that he fix his stupid fucking life like he wasn’t _trying_.

“Honestly, Steven,” He sighed, rubbing his brow. “You need to start thinking about these things.”

“I know, Dad.”

“You should have had a game plan before we drove three hours to schedule your classes,” He scolded. “You need to get your head out of the clouds and start _thinking_. What has been so time consuming that you didn’t _think_ that maybe you should know, at the very _least_ , what you wanted to major in?”

Steve kind of wanted to laugh.

He kind of wanted to say, _I don’t know, Dad, maybe I was a little too busy trying not to kill myself._

He wanted to say, _maybe I was too busy saving the fucking world, Dad._

He wanted to say _, maybe if my parents didn’t constantly fucking downplay everything I did, if they didn’t pick apart even the slightest flaws than I would know what I was good at.’_

But, he didn’t say anything.

He sighed.

His relationship with his mother was better.

Their relationship was getting better but his relationship with his father went from practically nonexistent to nonexistent after that day in his office. They walked into the same rooms and ate at the same table. They existed in the same places, but Steve felt more and more like they lived in different realities.

He wasn’t sure half the time if his father even _knew_ that he had a son, if he remembered, or cared. He spent more time at home, but it was at the request of his mother.

Someone _had_ to be home now.

Someone had to be there to make sure that Steve wasn’t face down in the bathtub, or bleeding on the kitchen floor, or overdosing on pills. His mother had her own paranoias now and they were all because of Steve.

They didn’t talk about the slap ever.

They didn’t talk about Steve running away to the Byers in any way beyond the occasional snide comment about not needing to air their dirty laundry to the likes of Joyce Byers. They didn’t really talk about anything.

His mother was supposed to be home from her trip in a few days and everything could get back to getting better. It _was_ better when they had a mediator between them because otherwise, it was like _this_.

Steve hated _this_.

It was kind of sad, sitting across from his dad at a cheap McDonalds and listening to him talk because there was this dawning realization. He realized that his father thought that money was going to fix all of this.

He thought that Steve was just another problem that could be solved if he threw enough money at it. He paid for the therapists and the classes, and all the tutors in the world to keep his grades up.

He paid for the meds and the art supplies, and gave money to his college. He hired a new assistant for when he worked at home just so there was someone around to make sure that Steve didn’t kill himself while his mother was out of town.

Steve _wished_ that he was the kind of problem that money would fix.

But he wasn’t.

His father thought that if they set Steve on a path that they liked, if they made everything really simple and held his hands through the processes than everything would be fine. He thought that if they kept the razor blades at bay and kept Steve too close to breathe – _it’s a close enough campus to home that you don’t need to stay in dorms. Your mother will be there, or my assistant. We’ll get you a driver –_ than they could save him.

So, his father made plans, and his mother made plans, and they planned, and planned, and planned everything down to the last possible detail because then Steve didn’t have to die.

If they planned everything and controlled his life than they didn’t have to lose their son, or their reputations in town as _well-adjusted,_ or their stupid book deals about how great of parents they are. It was really no one’s fault that they still had no idea how to exist around each other.

It was bullshit, but _bullshit_ was a triggering word for him, so he shouldn’t say it. He shouldn’t even think it, but he does.

And it is.

_Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit._

His father _paid_ for things, but he didn’t fix them. He threw cash at problems and got angry when that wasn’t enough, so he threw more cash and paid for more things – for the therapist that Steve picked and the classes that he didn’t want, and the tutoring, and the art – because it was easy to pay for things and to say that you were _trying_.

It was so fucking easy to _talk_ , but his father didn’t follow any of the rules that were laid out in therapy. He didn’t listen when they had a group session with Dr. Lindsey about Steve’s coping mechanisms, and effective communication, and about letting Steve be his own person not bound to impossible expectations.

He didn’t listen, and his mother didn’t really listen either. She was just better at pretending that she did, that she was trying. Steve didn’t really _believe_ any of it anyways, so it wasn’t like he a right to be angry with his parents for not believing it either.

He still thought that nothing really changed.

The world woke up, went through the motions, and then one day it would die bloody in the teeth of a flower-faced monster. He believed that, but he tried not to think about it too much.

It all just felt like buying time and that was _okay_.

He could never imagine his life passed tomorrow, but tomorrows kept coming and he kept buying days. He kept getting through them and things were _fine_.

They weren’t great, but they were fine.

He wasn’t going to slit his wrists because his father was disappointed in him. His father was _always_ disappointed in him.

He couldn’t picture himself ever being thirty, or twenty-five, or nineteen doing anything that really mattered, so he shouldn’t feel hurt that his father couldn’t see it either. He shouldn’t feel bad that his dad wanted to hold his hand through everything because the thought of him grown up with a job and a family, and a future just somehow _there_ was so fucking foreign. It was unnatural, unreal.

Steve couldn’t picture the future and he knew that his father couldn’t either.

His father was saying, “We don’t want to have to take care of you for the rest of your life.”

He was saying, “We want you to be active and useful part of society, not one of the beatnik lowlifes, not a freeloader.”

He was saying, “We want what’s best.”

 _For them_.

Steve thought that his father could see all the strings and the cracks, and how hard it was to just _exist_ in a world so loud and sharp. He thought that his father could see that Steve struggled with being out of sync with the world, could see how lost he was without his archetypes and stereotypes, and his bat.

His mother tried and pretended that she could see his struggling, but she was always so wrapped up in this notion of being _better_ that she failed to see that it was all pretend. His father didn’t.

His father just didn’t care.

He saw the challenge that had been in Steve’s eyes that night in his office, he saw the hopelessness and the recklessness, and how dangerous his son could be to no one other than himself. His father saw the _thirst_ for total self-annihilation, saw how much Steve had wanted him to do so much worse than just a slap.

He saw the lines that couldn’t be crossed twice.

He saw how far over them that they were.

Steve was never going to make it that far and they both knew it.

There was tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, but it was all just treading water over the same monsters. Steve wasn’t _fixed_ , they just slapped a band-aid over top of the problem and doused it in therapy bills and meds.

It was just _time_.

Nothing stayed locked up forever and Steve prepared himself for that. Nothing stayed gone, nothing stayed down, and the only thing that lasted was misery. They both knew it.

Steve was _trying_ , but for how long?

His dad was talking again about Steve interning at his company and how great of an opportunity that would be, but it was really just another way to assure that he was too busy and too close to kill himself. It was so that he could be nearby without having to pretend to be his father. He didn’t have to actually _listen_ to him if he was Steve’s boss.

It was like Steve was just another thing to attend to.

He was just another book signing, another deadline, another paid in the ass writer with writer’s block and a complex.

It was suffocating how much his father didn’t get it.

Steve wanted to laugh until it fucking hurt sometimes.

He wanted to think positive and be positive, and maybe _enjoy_ the days that he was just trying to get through. He didn’t want to fucking _die_ , but his parents made it so fucking impossible to want to be alive. They made it unbearable.

Steve shook his head and swiped the keys off the table.

He curled his fingers around the cold metal and met his father’s eyes with determination. He breathed out through dry lips, a total and solid resolution, “I don’t want to be here anymore.”

He took step, after step, after step.

Dr. Lindsey said that he didn’t have to trapped in places that he didn’t want to be in. She said to extend an olive branch and his father hadn’t taken it. She said that no one could make him feel bad unless he let them, so he walked across the parking lot.

His father followed, “Steven.”

His father followed, and his hand was heavy on his shoulder. Steve snapped, “Don’t fucking touch me.” 

The only reason that Steve was allowed to drive, allowed to stomp out of the place without a too much of a fuss was because he had planted his feet. He refused to be moved, or bullied, or made to feel hopeless.

There was some birthday party happening in the outdoor enclosure like it wasn’t still the cold part of Spring and his dad wasn’t going to make the scene that Steve was fully prepared to have. He wasn’t going to do anything.

So, Steve got his way.

His father got into the passenger seat and Steve got into the driver’s. He started the car and snapped on his seatbelt, and pulled out of the parking lot before his father started _nagging_.

It was all, ‘ _honestly, Steve,’_ and _‘do you know how embarrassing that behavior is,’_ and _‘this has got to stop.’_

Steve felt his breath start to drag heavy across his tongue, scrap down the back of his throat and he wanted to gag. He could hear a ringing in his ear that reverberated beneath his father’s stern voice and his vision started to tunnel to something that was dangerous, and trapped, and _bad_.

His father said, “Honestly, Steven, you cannot keep using these excuses. You’re eighteen and in therapy, start-“

Steve felt _dangerous_.

He felt bursting at the seams with fatality and violent intention, and he was basically alone on a road where no one would see what happened. It was so fucking _hard_ to climb this much out of depression and suicidal thoughts, out of fear and paranoia, and every moment that he spent with his father was stepping backwards.

He could feel the darkness curling into him, could feel it _breath_ against his face and his neck, and _reach_ for him. He could feel it crawl into his mouth and infect him, and he banked left.

He jerked the car across two empty lanes of traffic and nearly crashed it. It rolled to a bumpy stop against the guardrail, kicking up dust and dirt, and Steve knew that he just scrapped the hell out of the side of his father’s fucking Lincoln.

He sucked in a harsh breath and then burst into tears.

He took his shaking hands off the steering wheel, covering his face with them, and just, bawled his eyes out. He pitched forward with the intensity of it, fell apart in the driver’s seat.

He didn’t notice when the car was jerked into park or the slight rocking as the passenger’s seat was jerked open and slammed shut. He didn’t notice anything beyond the shallowness of his own rapid breathing.

He didn’t even flinch when the driver’s side door was open and there was suddenly light pouring over him, suddenly hands at his side and on his cheek. He didn’t say anything to the questions that he couldn’t understand other than to croak, “Sorry, I’m so sorry.”

“Shhh,” His father’s voice was deep and even in his ear. His touch was almost gentle in all the places that they hadn’t been before, stroking his cheek and hushing him, whispering, “Steve, it’s okay. No one is hurt. It’s going to be fine.”

“The car-“

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it – yes, it does!”

“Steve, it’s okay,” His father told him, voice slipping into something thicker, wetter. When Steve blinked at him, he noticed that his father’s hazel honey eyes were shiny like amber. “No one got hurt, the car is just an object. Why did you do that?”

He licked his lip and swallowed nausea, “You’re mad.”

“I’m not mad, Steven, I’m worried,” He told him. “You could have hurt yourself. Why did you do that, there was nothing in the road.”

“It’ s – It’s _not_ okay!” Steve shouted, jerking his head out of his father’s touch so hard that it slammed into the headrest. He squeezed his eyes shut against the falling tears and shuddered with something almost like a heave. “I – It’s not okay. It’s not okay, we’re just _pretending_ and you – you _hate_ me, and I can’t fix it. Okay? I don’t know how.”

“I don’t – I don’t hate you, Steve. I-“

“You want me to die,” Steve snapped, slapping at his hand when it was rested on his knee. “That – it doesn’t make any sense why you’re so mean to me if you don’t want me to die. You don’t listen to me or Dr. Lindsey, and I’m – I’m so sorry that I messed up, but-“

“I want you to get better, Steven.”

“You make me want to _die.”_

His father reared back almost violently with the harshness of Steve’s sureness, nearly toppling off his bended knees to the gravel and dirt beneath. His voice was wet and horrified, stern but it didn’t matter, Steve knew he wasn’t listening _again_ because he said, “Steven. I don’t want you to die.”

He said, “I could never want – you’re my son. You’re a part of me and your mother, I am only hard on you because I want the best for you.”

Steve shook his head, “That’s not how it works.”

Steve took a shuddery breath and felt like throwing up, “That’s bullshit.”

 

Steve changed his major to fine arts.

He wasn’t sure what exactly he was planning to do with a degree in fine arts or if there was _anything_ that could be done with that degree because his parents weren’t too sure about it. He wasn’t even sure if he would keep the major, only picking one because he wanted to be something other than _undecided._

He liked some of the art classes because he could _do_ it.

He dropped economics after three weeks.

He didn’t tell his dad.

He drove to the bridge just outside of Hawkins and sat there on the weekends, dangling his feet over the side and watching the rushing water run passed beneath him. He didn’t think about jumping that much anymore, not in any way that felt tangible.

Things were not perfect.

His wrists ached when the winter weather rolled back through Indiana and he had cut his hair a little shorter. He still didn’t date much, didn’t talk much. He wasn’t happy, but he was okay.

He said that, “I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m getting better.”

It was a mantra, but he liked to believe in it.

The world was not going to end today and that was enough for him. The gate was shut, the spies were at bay, and the kids were all safe and geeky freshmen in high school. That was enough.

He didn’t go into Hawkins anymore.

He drove up to the outskirts of the town and parked his car on the side of the road a couple times on the weekends. He would get out and walk a quarter mile trek through light forest to the abandon bridge and sit down on the ledge. He would look down at the water.

There used to be an old Hawkins legend about pretty girls with big empty eyes that would stand on the edge of this bridge and jump. The water would sweep them into the currents and they would never be seen again. It was how the bridge got the nickname Free Fall Ridge.

Dustin was nice about it.

He didn’t complain as much about it as he used to when he would bike out to the bridge. He just talked, and talked, and talked about high school problems and girls that didn’t like him like _that_ nowadays. He told Steve about how he had his old locker with the jagged piece of metal and his name carved into the door.

He talked about teenage drama, about Lucas and Max having a fight and El sneaking out. He talked about his new cat and seeing Steve’s parents around town, about Billy leaving town with his belonging packed up in his car.

He talked about visiting Indiana State – _it’s never too early to think about college, Steve! –_ and about Steve letting him stay at his apartment. Steve always said no.

It was kind of like a game now.

He had a studio apartment where the only walls that he had to worry about monsters crawling through were the four around him. He only had to worry about those four walls, two windows, a fire escape, and one front door.

His mother hated it, thought that it was the kind of beatnik nonsense that his grandmother would have loved, but Steve couldn’t handle walls much anymore.

Four walls, two windows, and one door.

It was enough. It was coping. It was avoiding triggers.

He breathed in the chilled air and he breathed out, saying, “I’m drowning in homework, man.”

“You’re _always_ drowning in homework, Steve.”

Monsters were real, and spies were real, but none of them were after him right now. Steve kept fairy lights tacked up around his apartment and he kept his bat in his bed, in the trunk of his car, hanging out of his backpack now.

He always kept the TV on mute and Dustin would hate that. He rarely ever played music inside anymore. His mother thought that the fairy lights were a nice homey touch to otherwise bare walls, but she said that it gave a _certain_ message.

Steve never asked what that message was, but he didn’t want Dustin to figure it out before him. He didn’t want his four walls, two windows, and one door to ever be touched by Hawkins, Indiana.

“How are you actually doing though?”

Steve never really stopped worrying about the spies, or monsters, or Billy Hargrove trying to kill him. He just thought about it differently. He _dealt_ with it differently, reminding himself that people would notice if he went missing now.

He reminded himself constantly that he _did_ tell someone everything about all of it and nothing happened. He reminded himself that he had decertified himself so much that even if he did get loud about the Upside Down and spies, and the government then the only thing that would happen would be a change to his meds. No one would believe him.

He was, for all intents and purposes, free.

Or at least, he had the illusion of that freedom but even that was fine. He was fine with that. He could work with that and live within those confines.

Nothing stayed locked up forever and one day, the gate would open again. He could live with knowing that because he could get through today to a better tomorrow, and he was still working on getting better.

Safety was an illusion, but illusions were nice sometimes.

“I’m – I’m fine, better. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everybody that has taken the time to reach this story, and to leave comments and kudos, and bookmark and subscribe to it. It truly meant the world.


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